Soirées Musicales
presents
Spencer Myer, pianist

Saturday, January 10, 2009

SPENCER MYER is rapidly establishing himself as one of the most outstanding pianists of his generation. His orchestral, recital and chamber music performances have been heard throughout North America, Canada, Europe, Africa and Asia. He has been soloist with The Cleveland Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and Beijing’s China National Symphony Orchestra, and has collaborated with, among others, conductors Nicholas Cleobury, Jacques Lacombe, Jahja Ling, Maurice Peress, Klauspeter Seibel, Arjan Tien and Victor Yampolsky. In May 2005, Mr. Myer’s recital/orchestral tour of South Africa included a performance of the five piano concerti of Beethoven with the Chamber Orchestra of South Africa. Spencer Myer’s recital appearances have been presented in New York City’s Weill Recital Hall, 92nd Street Y and Steinway Hall, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts and London’s Wigmore Hall, as well as in Chicago, Cincinnati, Fort Worth, Knoxville, Logan and China, while many of his performances have been broadcast on WQXR (New York City), WHYY (Philadelphia), WCLV (Cleveland) and WFMT (Chicago). An avid chamber musician, he has also performed with the Blair and Pacifica String Quartets.

In 2004, Spencer Myer captured First Prize in the 10th UNISA International Piano Competition in Pretoria, South Africa, as well as special prizes for the best performances of Bach, the commissioned work, the semifinal round recital and both concerto prizes in the final round. First Prizes were also bestowed from the 2002 Heida Hermanns and 2000 Grace Welsh International Piano Competitions. He is also a laureate in the 2005 Cleveland, 2005 Busoni (where he was also awarded the Audience Prize), 2004 Montréal and 2003 New Orleans International Piano Competitions. Winner of the 2006 Christel DeHaan Classical Fellowship from the American Pianists Association, Mr. Myer also received both of the competition’s special prizes in Chamber Music and Lieder Accompanying. He is also the winner of the 2000 Marilyn Horne Foundation Competition, and subsequently enjoys a growing reputation as a vocal collaborator. Mr. Myer has been a member of Astral Artistic Services’ performance roster since winning that organization’s 2003 national auditions. An enthusiastic supporter of the education of young musicians, Spencer Myer has been a frequent guest artist at workshops for students and teachers, including Indiana’s Goshen College Piano Workshop and the Texas Conservatory for Young Artists in Dallas, and has served on the faculty of the Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory of Music. He is also an advocate of contemporary music and inter-arts collaboration, and has worked with the Chicago- and New York-based ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble), Indianapolis’ Dance Kaleidoscope, Ohio Dance Theatre and New York City’s New Triad for Collaborative Arts and The Juilliard School’s “Composers and Choreographers” series. Spencer Myer is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where he studied with Julian Martin. Other teachers include Peter Takács, Joseph Schwartz and Christina Dahl. He spent two summers at the Music Academy of the West, studying with Jerome Lowenthal and, later, Vocal Accompanying with Warren Jones and Marilyn Horne. During the course of his undergraduate studies at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, he was the recipient of numerous awards from that institution, while, in 2000, he was named a recipient of a four-year Jacob K. Javits Memorial Fellowship from the United States Department of Education. His Doctor of Musical Arts degree was conferred by Stony Brook University in 2005. Spencer Myer can be heard on the Dimension Records label, performing music of the late Cleveland composer Frederick Koch.

SPENCER MYER last appeared on the Soirées Musicales series on May 5, 2007.





“Mr. Myer gave us a continually reflective and sensitive Brahms First Concerto, of a density that communicated to the entire hall and, like a miracle, to the orchestra as well.”

La Presse (Montreal)



PROGRAM


Suite No. 2 in F, HWV 427

Adagio
Allegro
Adagio
Allegro

Barcarolle, Op. 60 (1845-46)

Piano Sonata No. 1 (1990)
George Frederic Händel (1685-1759)






Frédéric Chopin (1810-49)
Carl Vine (b. 1954)

INTERMISSION


Iberia (Book I)

Evocación
El puerto
Corpus Christi en Sevilla

Venezia e Napoli, S. 159

Gondoliera
Canzone
Tarantella


Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909)




Franz Liszt (1811-86)