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Orli Shaham, who has earned an international reputation as one of today’s most gifted young pianists, will give a concert 8 p.m. today at the Williams Center for the Arts.
Tickets for the public cost $18 and can be purchased by calling the box office at 610-330-5009.
Shaham’s distinctive program for this concert focuses on great piano works that various composers have created to honor the dance. J. S. Bach’s “French Suite No. 6” features such baroque dance figures as the Allemande, Sarabande, Gavotte, Menuet and Gigue; compositions by Dvorak, Bartok, and Copland celebrate, respectively, the folk dances of the Czech countryside, Hungarian village dances, and the dance rhythms of Cuba; and three composers invoke the elegance of the ballroom and palace, with Chopin’s famous “Polonaise in A-flat major,” Ravel’s virtuosic “La Valse,” and Debussy’s suite of dances from his Bergamasque collection.
Prior to the concert, Shaham will attend a reception 4:30-5:50 p.m. at the Hillel House, 324 Clinton Terrace, by special invitation of Howard Marblestone, professor of foreign languages and literatures, and Robert Weiner, Jones Professor of History and Jewish chaplain. All are welcome to attend.
Honors have come early for the expressive pianist, with the prestigious Gilmore and Avery Fisher Career Grants signaling her meteoric rise in the 1990s. Still in her 20s, Shaham now commands attention throughout the musical world, both as recitalist and as concerto soloist. Critics praise her musicianship and intelligence with such terms as “radiance,” “clarity,” “refinement,” and “passion,” all of which were in abundant evidence when National Public Radio featured her last fall in a week-long profile on “Performance Today.”
Shaham’s recent seasons have included successful debuts with the Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras, both resulting in re-engagements; numerous acclaimed recitals, including appearances in New York and Washington, D.C.; and an American tour as soloist with the Jerusalem Symphony.
Orchestral engagements last season included appearances with the Royal Stockholm Harmonic, the New World and Tuscan symphonies, return engagements with the Saint Louis Symphony and Florida Orchestra, and her Australian debut with the Sydney Symphony.
Other career highlights in recent years have included performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, the Biboa Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de Lyon, the Orchestra of La Scala (Milan), the Orchestra della Toscana (Florence), and the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan.
In addition to solo recitals, she has appeared on Robert Kapilow’s “What Makes it Great” series in New York and Boston, performing works by Brahms. She also made extended duo-recital tours of Europe and North America with her brother, violinist Gil Shaham.
Shaham has made several tours of Japan and given performances with the National Symphony under Christopher Hogwood, San Diego Symphony under Yoav Talmi, Minnesota Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Santa Rosa Symphony, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall. In 1997 she released a recording, Dvořák for Two, with Gil Shaham on the Deutsche Grammophon label. In addition to Aspen, Shaham has performed at the Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Caramoor, Grand Teton, Verbier, Spoleto (Italy), and Davos festivals. She has also appeared in solo and duo recitals in several European music centers, including Frankfurt, Munich, and Paris.
Shaham has been recognized as an exceptional artist since age five, when she was awarded her first scholarship for musical study from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. At that time, she was a student of Luisa Yoffe at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem, and two of her performances were soon broadcast on Israeli Radio. At age seven, she came to New York with her family and began to study with Nancy Stessin. One year later, she was accepted at the Juilliard School as a scholarship student of Herbert Stessin.
She is a graduate of the Horace Mann School in Riverdale, N.Y., and of Columbia University, where she earned a degree in history. She pursued musical studies at the Juilliard School, beginning in its Pre-College Division and continuing while a student at Columbia.
The nationally recognized Performance Series attracts more than 10,000 people each season. It has been cited for performing excellence by the National Endowment for the Arts, National Dance Project, Chamber Music America, Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund, Pennsylvania Arts and Humanities Councils, and Association of Performing Arts Presenters.
The 2003-04 Performance Series at Lafayette is supported in part by gifts from Friends of the Williams Center for the Arts; by the F.M. Kirby Foundation; by provisions of the Alan and Wendy Pesky Artist-in-Residence Program, the James Bradley Fund, and the Ed Brunswick Jazz Fund; and by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour, and New England Foundation for the Arts.