PianoFest 2023 - Opus 14
Jarred Dunn
Jarred Dunn is the first prize winner of the Lithuanian International Chopin Competition (Vilnius) and a prize winner of the Jan Hoffman International Competition in Kraków. He has been described by critics as “a piano sound-colour magician” (Muzikos Barai, Vilnius), “evocative and mystical” (New York Classical Music), and “technically perfect” (Belarus First Radio). He has been heard on CBC, WWFM, Belarusian First, and Madison Freethought Radio/Television. He hosted the CBC’s This is My Music and was featured on the 2018 Top Thirty Under Thirty: Hot Canadian Classical Musicians (CBC). His recordings include Chopin and Debussy (2019) and Brahms in Solitude (2022). A graduate of the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music (class of Prof. Katarzyna Popowa-Zydroń) and the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice (class of Prof. Anna Górecka), he continued his studies at The Juilliard School with Prof. Jacob Lateiner and Prof. Yoheved Kaplinsky. Other important teachers include Dorothy Taubman, Andrzej Jasiński, Robert Levin, David Dubal, and Maria João-Pires.
He has performed in Europe, North America, and Australia, including concerto appearances with the Lithuanian Chamber, Budapest Chamber, Belarusian Radio/Television, NOSPR Katowice, Toronto Sinfonia, Niagara Symphony, and many others. Actively interested in chamber music, he has cooperated recently with the Atma Quartet in Bydgoszcz (Regionalny Inicjatywa Doskonałości). He judges in national and international competitions, recently the Lithuanian International Chopin, Classicalia International, and Canadian National piano competitions. Noted as a “revered pedagogue,” (Tonebase Piano) he has been in great demand for master classes and lectures on Tonebase Piano and has given master classes, lectures, and research papers at Bydgoszcz and Katowice Academies, Vilnius Academy Preparatory School, the Universities of Toronto, Carleton, Ottawa, and Queen’s. He is the recipient of many awards, research grants, and scholarships from FRQSC, Canada Arts Council, Aspen Music Festival, McGill University, University of Toronto, and CFMTA for his pianistic, scholarly, and pedagogical achievements. He is based in Montréal, Canada, where at McGill University Schulich School of Music, he was invited to teach piano while still pursuing his doctorate. Mr. Dunn is a Yamaha Artist. For more information, visit www.jarredunn.com.
Jarred Dunn will perform a recital at the Jennifer Velva Bernstein Hall at The Isabel on January 16, 2022. Tickets and more information are available here.
Murray McLachlan
Since making his professional debut in 1986 at the age of 21 under the baton of Sir Alexander Gibson, Murray McLachlan has consistently received outstanding critical acclaim. Educated at Chetham’s School of Music and Cambridge University, his mentors included Ronald Stevenson, David Hartigan, Ryszard Bakst, Peter Katin and Norma Fisher.
His recording career began in 1988 and immediately attracted international attention. Recordings of contemporary music have won numerous accolades, including full star ratings, as well as ‘rosette’ and ‘key recording’ status in the Penguin Guide to CDs, and ‘Disc of the month’ and ‘Record of the month ‘in ‘Music on the Web’ and ‘The Herald’. McLachlan’s discography now includes over forty commercial recordings, including the complete sonatas of Myaskovsky and Prokofiev, the six concertos of Alexander Tcherepnin, the 24 Preludes and Fugues of Rodion Shchedrin, Ronald Stevenson’s ‘Passacaglia on DSCH’ the major works of Kabalevsky, Khatchaturian and the complete solo piano music of Erik Chisholm. His most recent releases feature British Music: In 2020 he recorded for Naxos the complete piano music of Edward Gregson and in 2019 for SOMM he the Ruth Gipps Piano Concerto with the RLPO. Both issues have received international critical acclaim and been broadcast several times on BBC Radio Three.
McLachlan’s repertoire includes over 40 concertos and 25 recital programmes. He has performed the complete Beethoven piano sonata cycle seven times, as well as the complete piano music of Brahms. He has given first performances of works by many composers, including Martin Butler, Ronald Stevenson, Charles Camilleri, Michael Parkin and even Beethoven! He has appeared as soloist with most of the leading UK orchestras. His recognition has been far-reaching, bringing invitations to perform on all five continents. At the same time, he continues to give numerous concerts and master classes in the UK.
McLachlan teaches at the Royal Northern College of Music and at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester where he has been Head of Keyboard since 1997. He is the founder of the Manchester International Concerto competition for young pianists as well as the Founder/Artistic Director of the world famous Chetham’s International Summer school and festival for Pianists, Europe’s largest summer school devoted exclusively to the piano.
As a teacher McLachlan continues to be very busy and in demand. Many of his students have won prizes in competitions and continued with their own successful careers as performers.
In 2013 the University of Dundee awarded him an honorary doctorate for outstanding services to music. As well as performing and teaching, he is well known internationally for his numerous articles on Piano technique and repertoire. This includes extended columns which have appeared in ‘International Piano’ ‘Pianist’ and ‘Piano’ Magazines. In 2021 he started writing a weekly blog for EVC Music ‘Musical Musings with Murray’. His three books on piano playing ‘Foundations of technique’, ‘Piano Technique in Practice’ and ‘The Psychology of Piano Technique’ have been widely distributed and are published by Faber Music.
Murray McLachlan will be in Residency in March 2023:
March 3, 2023 - Masterclass at 1:00pm - Harrison LeCaine Hall, Room 124: Free Event
March 4, 2023 - Lecture-Recital on Scottish Composers at 2:30pm - Rehearsal Room at The Isabel: Restricted to Students, Faculty, Staff, and Invited Guests Only
March 6, 2023 - Recital at 7:30pm - Jennifer Velva Bernstein Hall at The Isabel: Tickets Available Soon
Paul-André Bempéchat
Franco-Canadian pianist and musicologist Paul-André Bempéchat was raised in Montréal and has made his career overseas and in the United States. He studied at the Manhattan and Juilliard Schools of Music where his mentors were Artur Balsam and Nadia Reisenberg in piano, Martin Isepp in Vocal Accompanying and Felix Galimir in Chamber Music. Studies in Musicology and Comparative Literature followed at Boston University and at the Sorbonne.
From his base at Harvard since 2002, Dr. Bempéchat sustains the career which has brought him to the many philharmonics, the Wiener Festwochen and Berlin’s Konzerthaus through recitals, concerto appearances and residencies across North America and Europe. He is currently a Fellow and Artist-in-Residence (Spring 2023) at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies where has also begun research into the reception history of Beethoven's piano sonatas.
In 2022 with support from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design Foundation where he has taught in the Liberal Arts Department since 2014, Dr. Bempéchat released the second edition of his seminal biography of the eclectic French impressionist Jean Cras, Jean Cras, Polymath of Music and Letters with Peter Lang Publishing in Switzerland, along with the first edition of the composer's early songs (Ayotte). As all this was accomplished by one perceived as a foreigner - Bempéchat is French from birth and Canadian by naturalization - this inspired the wrath of the French musical community. Go Canada!
For his service to French music, Dr. Bempéchat was decorated Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture, and as Honourary Fellow of the Royal Academic Chapel and Orchestra at Uppsala University.
M. Bempéchat's first performed at Queen's in 1982 and this week's residency marks his first appearance in Canada since 1992.
Paul-André Bempéchat will be in Residency in March 2023:
March 16, 2023 - Lecture-Recital on Jean Cras at 11:30am - Piano Studio, Convocation Hall: Free Event
March 17, 2023 - Masterclass at 1:00pm - Harrison LeCaine Hall, Room 124: Free Event
March 18, 2023 - Recital at 7:30pm - Rehearsal Room at The Isabel: Tickets Available Soon