Ogunquit Performing Arts Presents the 16th Annual Elizabeth Dunaway Burnham Piano Festival at Barn Gallery, Bourne Lane at Shore Road, Ogunquit.

CONCERT SCHEDULE:
Friday, October 4th (at 7:30PM): Janice Weber Piano Concert (Learn More + Purchase Tickets)
Sunday, October 6th (at 3PM): Student Piano Recital (Learn More – Free Admission)
Saturday, October 12th (at 7:30PM): Randall Hodgkinson Piano Concert (Learn More + Purchase Tickets)

Scroll down and continue reading for additional important information and ticket purchase details…

Location: Barn Gallery, 3 Hartwig Lane (off Bournes Lane at Shore Rd), Ogunquit
Price: $20 in advance; $25 at the door

World-class pianist, Janice Weber, returns for her fifth appearance in Ogunquit, this time bringing with her a dazzling program of works by Grieg and Liszt.

Janice Weber is a vivacious performer with a reputation for programing the most exciting and technically challenging selections – which certainly applies to her upcoming performance for OPA! Her program includes works by Grieg and Liszt – a composer with whom she is particularly identified.

“Ms. Weber is … a concert pianist of cliffhanging panache and daredevil brilliance.” Ellen Pfeifer, The Wall Street Journal

Her world premiere recording of Liszt’s 1838 Transcendental Etudes elicited acclaim from Time Magazine: “Liszt later simplified these pieces into the still ferociously difficult Transcendental Etudes (1852 version) for fear that no one else could play them. There may now be several fire-eating piano virtuosos who can execute the original notes, but few can liberate the prophetic music they contain as masterfully as Janice Weber does here.”

Ms. Weber recorded Liszt’s last Hungarian Rhapsody, one of only two living pianists to be included in a compendium of historic performances by nineteen legendary artists. This disc subsequently won the International Liszt Prize. Her recordings also include Rachmaninoff’s complete transcriptions; with the Lydian Quartet, Leo Ornstein’s vast Piano Quintet; flute and piano works of Sigfrid Karg-Elert; and waltz transcriptions of Godowsky, Rosenthal, and Friedman.

Her Naxos recording of Leo Ornstein’s radical works introduced the charismatic composer to a worldwide audience. She is heard in Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time on Ongaku Records and her newest disc, Cascade of Roses (Dorian Sono Luminus),features works of twenty-one composers from Adolf Jensen to Billy Mayerl.

A summa cum laude graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Janice Weber has performed at the White House, Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, National Gallery of Art, and Boston’s Symphony Hall. She has appeared with the Boston Pops, Chautauqua Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Hilton Head Orchestra, Sarajevo Philharmonic, and Syracuse Symphony. She has performed at the Bard, Newport, La Gesse, Husum, and Monadnock summer festivals and has twice toured China under the auspices of the American Liszt Society.

She was a member of the piano faculty at Boston Conservatory for twenty-seven years and has taught at MIT and New England Conservatory.

Ms. Weber is also a published author. Her novels, most of which have something to do with music, have a worldwide following. She also produced the tones for Ivory, the worldwide bestselling virtual piano software.

She is a Steinway artist.

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Ms. Weber’s Program:

Prelude and Fugue in E minor, Op. 35 No. 1
Felix Mendelssohn (1809 – 1847)

Lyric Pieces
Edvard Grieg (1843 – 1907)

To Spring, Op. 43 No. 6
March of the Trolls, Op. 54 No. 3
Butterfly, Op. 43 No. 1
Peace of the Woods, Op. 71 No. 4
Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, Op. 65 No. 6

Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op. 42
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 – 1943)

INTERMISSION

St. Francis of Assisi Preaching to the Birds
St. Francis of Assisi Walking on the Waters
Franz Liszt (1811 – 1886)

Harmonies du Soir

Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12

Location: Barn Gallery, 3 Hartwig Lane (off Bournes Lane or Shore Rd), Ogunquit
Price: Free Admission

The Festival’s Student Piano Recital, showcases up to 15 of the area’s best young pianists, performing on Ogunquit Performing Art Committee’s famed Steinway piano. The recital provides these talented local students the opportunity to perform on a world class piano before a live audience in a beautiful setting.

The Piano Festival honors the memory of Elizabeth Dunaway Burnham, founder and first chairperson of Ogunquit Performing Arts. A pianist herself, Betty studied, performed and taught piano for most of her life. She also saw to it that OPA acquired its spectacular Steinway Concert Model C Grand Piano, which still remains OPA’s greatest treasure.

The Ogunquit Performing Arts Committee was Betty’s brain-child. Her love of Ogunquit was matched by her love of the piano, which she studied and taught for most of her life. She long dreamed of the possibility that Ogunquit could support a program of musical performances to add to its attractiveness as a welcoming place for painters, sculptors and summer theatre.

When her father, S. Judson Dunaway, died in 1976, his will directed that a portion of his estate be donated to charitable causes. Betty requested that the executors include a contribution to Ogunquit to endow a fund to help support musical performances, some to be held at the Dunaway Center, which he earlier had donated to the town. When this endowment was in place, the Committee for the Performing Arts was formed and began its work, with Betty elected as chairperson.

Location: Barn Gallery, 3 Hartwig Lane, (off Bournes Lane or Shore Rd), Ogunquit
Price: $20 in advance; $25 at the door

Ogunquit’s favorite Randall Hodgkinson, leader of Boston Chamber Music, turns his attention to solo repertoire in a beautiful program of Bach, Berg and Chopin.

Renowned classical pianist, Randall Hodgkinson, returns to Ogunquit as a piano soloist, having performed in Ogunquit multiple times with the late Bruce Coppock and the Boston Chamber Music Society’s Piano Quartet.

“The finest performance I have ever heard of this very difficult piece. It was as if he was reading my mind…” Aaron Copland on hearing pianist Randall Hodgkinson performing his Piano Fantasy in Jordan Hall, Boston.

Randy achieved recognition as the Grand Prize winner of the International American Music competition, sponsored by Carnegie Hall and the Rockefeller Foundation, winner in the JS Bach International Competition, and as the recipient of the Tanglewood Music Center’s prestigious Cabot Award. His solo orchestral performances include appearances with the Atlanta Symphony, the Philadelphia, the Boston Symphony, and Cleveland Orchestras, the Buffalo Philharmonic, and the New York Symphony. He has also performed at numerous well regarded chamber music festivals, including but not limited to: Blue Hill (Maine), Chestnut Hill (Connecticut), Seattle (Washington) and Santa Fe (New Mexico).

As both of Randy’s parents were musicians, Randy began his musical career at a very young age, with his mother as his first teacher. “Discovered” at a music festival at age 15 he was encouraged to apply for admission to the New England Conservatory of music, where he earned a BA, MM and AD. His musical repertoire spans from JS Bach to Donald Marino, and he recently performed the world premier of the piano concerto of composer Gardener Read at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y. He regularly performs the four hand and two piano repertoire with his talented spouse, Leslie Amper.

He currently serves on the faculties of the New England Conservatory, the Longy School of Music at Bard College in Cambridge, MA, and Wellesley College.

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Mr. Hodgkinson’s Program:
Bach: Italian Concerto
Berg: Sonata in b minor
Chopin: Fantasy
Chopin: Sonata in b minor

Tickets to these performances are available on the Ogunquit Performing Arts website. Click here to purchase in advance.

Tickets may also be purchased at the Cricket’s Corner Beach and Toy, the Dunaway Center, and the Ogunquit Welcome Center beginning three weeks prior to the performance.

Tickets: $20 in advance, $25 at the door for both Weber and Hodgkinson concerts
Free admission for Student Recital

Free parking for the performances at the Barn Gallery

FMI: ogunquitperformingarts.org

Learn more about the Barn Gallery 2024 Schedule: barngallery.org/2024-season