Sponsored by San Francisco’s Ross McKee Foundation and featured as part of their Piano Break series, Bay Area and Shanghai based pianist Jenny Q Chai will perform a free evening length concert on Friday, May 7, 2021 at 5:00 pm, Pacific time (8:00pm Eastern time).
This concert will last under an hour and will be broadcast at rossmckeefoundation.org/youtube. Pre-registration is not required.
At the conclusion of every Piano Break, the audience can meet the artist and ask questions in a live Zoom Green Room: https://rossmckeefoundation.org/zoom .
Entitled Humanity First: We Are All In This Together, this will be Ms. Chai’s first solo virtual concert, her first concert designed during the Covid-19 pandemic in the U.S. and her first concert in 2021. Her performances of Ligeti's Musica Ricercata (No.1 and No.7) will be accompanied by NASA global warming data visualisations. Kapuściński's Side Effects will include photography by Kacper Kowalski. Works by Pavlovic and Akiho are Bay Area Premieres, with the former's performance set to include a bubble machine and lights, and the latter, paintings by Camryn Connolly.
In Chai’s words, “Globally, we are experiencing the same kind of difficulties, and yet trying to survive, to adapt, to thrive and to hold on to hope. It is a heightened time for us to remember to unite together as earthlings. We must take care of our earth, global health systems, strategizing, communications and planning, in order to survive together.” Last year, Chai gave a TEDx talk, When Classical Music Meets Technology. Chai believes that art needs to reflect the current state of our world, and to raise awareness in people about social issues.