A Master Among Us! Western Pennsylvania is blessed to have in its midst the international competition winner and celebrated and much travelled keyboard artist, David Allen Wehr, who returns to Foxburg to perform a program of Piano Classical Pops on the Lincoln Hall Steinway on Sunday afternoon, April 26 at 2:00 PM.
Known for his exceptional rapport with audiences, David will share with the audience the classics of the piano repertoire that are beloved and recognizable. There is a reason that many of the treasured and most well known piano works sing in our imaginations and are revered by generations of music lovers. Enjoy David’s commentary and masterful performance of his beautifully chosen and delightful program from Debussy and Beethoven, to Chopin, Rachmaninoff and the blues, which is certain to charm and delight ARCA audiences – Popular Piano Classics in the hands of a Master.
David Allen Wehr’s international career was launched when he won the Gold Medal at the 1987 Santander International Piano Competition in Spain. Resulting tours have taken him to over 30 countries in Europe, North and South America, and the Far East, including performances in the world musical capitals of New York, London, Paris, Vienna, Washington, Madrid and Buenos Aires. Over 1,000 concerts include 13 seasons of touring the United States and Canada for Community Concerts as soloist and chamber music collaborator.
The audience is invited to make a spring afternoon of it on the beautiful banks of the Allegheny River – enjoying some of the most beautiful piano music every written in the hands of a master and attending a post-concert, Meet the Artist reception in the Red Brick Gallery for the opening exhibit of digital photography artist Carolyn Schiffhouer.
David Allen Wehr Program
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Lincoln Hall – Foxburg, PA
Debussy: Two Arabesques
Clair de lune
Golliwog’s Cakewalk
Beethoven: Moonlight Sonata
Granados: Andaluza
Falla: Ritual Fire Dance
Intermission
Chopin: Military Polonaise
Waltz in C# Minor
Minute Waltz
Nocturne in Db Major
Heroic Polonaise
Rachmaninoff: Prelude in C# Minor
Joe Utterback: Deep River (arr.
Tuxedo Blues
International competition winner and celebrated pianist, David Allen Wehr, returns to Foxburg to perform a program of Piano Classical Pops on the Lincoln Hall Steinway on Sunday afternoon, April 26 at 2:00 PM.
David’s international career was launched when he won the Gold Medal at the 1987 Santander International Piano Competition in Spain. The resulting tours have taken him to over 30 countries in Europe, North and South America, and the Far East, including performances in the world musical capitals of New York, London, Paris, Vienna, Washington, Madrid and Buenos Aires
It was David’s thirteen seasons touring the United States and Canada for Community concerts as a soloist and in chamber music partnerships that honed his unique ability to make great works for the piano accessible to the public. Known for his ability as a “Living Program Note”, Dave has a warm personality that welcomes an audience member into the emotion of the music and makes imaginative and simple the intricacies of great works of music.
David will share with the audience the classics of the piano repertoire that are near and dear and recognizable to all music lovers. His program from Debussy and Beethoven, to Chopin, Rachmaninoff and the blues, is certain to charm and delight ARCA audiences.
David Allen Wehr
David Allen Wehrholds the Jack W. Geltz Distinguished Piano Chair at the Mary Pappert School of Music. His international career was launched when he won the Gold Medal at the 1987 Santander International Piano Competition in Spain. The resulting tours have taken him to over 30 countries in Europe, North and South America, and the Far East, including performances in the world musical capitals of New York, London, Paris, Vienna, Washington, Madrid and Buenos Aires. Over 1,000 concerts include 13 seasons of touring the United States and Canada for Community Concerts as soloist, pianist with the Sartory Trio, and duo-recital partner with violinist Linda Wang and cellist Zuill Bailey. Wehr has been soloist with the London Symphony, National Symphony, Chautauqua Symphony, Houston Symphony, New Zealand Symphony and all the major Spanish and Latin American orchestras.
Born in Princeton, New Jersey, Wehr grew up in Boise, Idaho, where his parents, graduates of Westminster Choir College, were ministers of music at the Methodist Cathedral of the Rockies. Piano lessons began on his fourth birthday with his mother and continued with his father. Later teachers were Peggy Erwin, Edward Zolas and Sequeira Costa. Wehr studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Taos School of Music, the Dartington Summer Music School in England, and holds degrees from the University of Kansas. He coached extensively with Leon Fleisher, Jorge Bolet and Malcolm Frager. Early in his career, Wehr won the 1975 Kosciuszko Chopin Prize in New York City, the 1983 National Federation of Music Clubs Young Artist Award, and Second Prizes in the 1983 Naumburg International Piano Competition at New York’s Carnegie Hall, and the 1986 Kapell Competition at the Kennedy Center.
David Allen Wehr has amassed a large and critically acclaimed discography with Connoisseur Society, Inc., with programs by Chopin, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Mussorgsky, Schumann, Delius, Czerny, Gershwin, Brahms, Griffes, Wagner-Liszt, Dvoř-k and Joe Utterback. The complete Beethoven Sonata Cycle has been released in four double-CD albums. His CDs are available through the Mary Pappert School of Music by calling (412) 396-6082 and at amazon.com. Since 2007, Wehr has served each summer as Principal Keyboard at the Sunflower Music Festival in Topeka, Kansas and the Buzzards Bay Musicfest in Marion, Massachusetts.
Wehr was first associated with Duquesne from 1991-1994, when the Sartory Trio was chamber ensemble-in-residence, and his current tenure began in 2001, when he was named the first Hillman Distinguished Chair. His previous performance projects here include the complete Beethoven Sonata Cycle (2002-2004), Beethoven’s “Dynamic Duos”: the complete violin-piano sonatas with Charles Stegeman, the complete works for cello and piano with Anne Martindale Williams, and the Ninth Symphony in Liszt’s two-piano transcription with Helene Wickett (2004), “Brahms on the Bluff”, (Brahms’ complete instrumental chamber music, 2005-2008), “Musique on the Bluff” (French music, 2008-2010), “Bicentennials on the Bluff” (Chopin and Schumann, 2010), “Dvořák at Duquesne” (2011), and “Budapest on the Bluff” (2012). His current concert series, “Beethoven on the Bluff,” is the first season of a two-year series presenting the major piano chamber works of Beethoven. It will consist of four concerts of music written from 1793-1801.