This preview has been provided by the St. Stephen’s Concert Series.
On Sunday, January 5 at 4PM , the brilliant 19 year old pianist, Alexander Beyer, will join violinist Nicholas Kitchen and his wife, Yeesun Kim, in a performance of Ravel’s ravishingly beautiful, but technically daunting, Piano Trio. The concert, which is part of the current season of the St. Stephen’s Concert Series, will take place in the Nave of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Durham. Beethoven’s Archduke Trio and Ravel’s coruscating Sonate for violin and cello will complete the program.
Nicholas and Yeesun are well known to triangle audiences as a result of their many appearances in the area, They are founding members of the internationally acclaimed Borromeo String Quartet, which gives roughly 100 concerts per year, including annual concerts at St. Stephen’s. (Their next concert at the church on February 23 features works by Mozart, Bartók, and Dvořák.)
Winner of several important competitions, young Alexander Beyer has already soloed with half a dozen symphony orchestras. In particular, his performance of Rachmaninoff’s third piano concerto can seen on You Tube. In 2012 he was named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts and he is now enrolled as a first year student in both Harvard and the New England Conservatory. Last summer he was one of the two pianists among 19 students who participated in the prestigious chamber music program in Taos, NM where pianist Robert MacDonald and the Borromeo String Quartet served as faculty.
There will be a half hour preconcert discussion at 3:00 p.m. at which time Nicholas will share insights gleaned from Beethoven’s hand written manuscript of the Archduke Trio.
Tickets ($21) are available at the door. The concert is free for those 18 or under.
