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Maryville Music at Maryville SLSO

Celebrating Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) — Two Concerts at Maryville University, September 30 & October 20, 2024

Gabriel Fauré — Portrait by John Singer Sargent, 1889.

Free admission to both events!

The concerts will not be live-streamed, and no recordings will be available, so please consider enjoying these performances in person. Feel free to share this information with anyone you know who may be interested.


Faculty Recital — Peter Henderson, piano

Monday, September 30, 2024 • 7:30 p.m. • Maryville University Auditorium • Directions

Musical Program

Gabriel Fauré: Works for Solo Piano
  • Romance sans paroles in A-flat major, op. 17 no. 3 (ca. 1863) (ca. 3 minutes)
  • Nocturne No. 2 in B major, op. 33 no. 2 (ca. 1881) (ca. 6 minutes)
  • Valse-caprice No. 1 in A major, op. 30 (1882) (ca. 7 minutes)
  • Impromptu No. 2 in F minor, op. 31 (1883) (ca. 4 minutes)
  • Impromptu No. 3 in A-flat major, op. 34 (1883) (ca. 5 minutes)
  • Nocturne No. 6 in D-flat major, op. 63 (1894) (ca. 9 minutes)
  • Deux pièces, op. 104 (1913)
    1. Nocturne No. 11 in F-sharp minor (ca. 5 minutes)
    2. Barcarolle No. 10 in A minor (ca. 4 minutes)
  • Nocturne No. 13 in B minor, op. 119 (1921) (ca. 7 minutes)

Brief Program Note

To observe the centenary of Gabriel Fauré’s death, Peter Henderson will perform a Maryville University Faculty Recital exploring works spanning the great French composer’s career. Renowned for his harmonic explorations and freedom, Fauré was also an inspired melodist, spinning long, flowing phrases set in a florid texture. His elegant, gorgeous piano music is poised between vigor and languor, raw emotion and restraint. This program features some of his most famous and extroverted early piano works, including the witty Valse-caprice No. 1 and two scintillating Impromptus, and ends with a few of Fauré’s sorrowful yet consolatory late pieces, including his intensely moving Nocturne No. 13.


Music at Maryville Series 2024-2025, Concert 2 of 4 — Musicians of the SLSO perform Gabriel Fauré’s Two Piano Quintets & Leo Marcus’s Three Schumann Stars

Sunday, October 20, 2024 • 3:00 p.m. • Maryville University Auditorium • Directions

Artists

Musical Program

  • Gabriel Fauré: Piano Quintet No. 1 in D minor, op. 89 (1887-95) (ca. 30 minutes)
  • Robert Schumann (1810-1856): Untitled piece No. 30 from Album for the Young, op. 68 (ca. 4 minutes)
  • Leo Marcus (b. 1945): Three Schumann Stars (Piano Quintet No. 3) (Missouri Premiere) (ca. 14 minutes)
  • Intermission (ca. 10 minutes)
  • Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924): Piano Quintet No. 2 in C minor, op. 115 (1919-21) (ca. 32 minutes)

Brief Program Note

Coming soon.

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Maryville Music at Maryville SLSO

Music at Maryville Concert Series 2024-2025

  • Free admission to all concerts (including the two faculty solo piano recitals by Peter Henderson listed at the end of this webpage)!
  • All events will take place in the Maryville University Auditorium.
  • Concerts will not be live-streamed, so please join us in person!

Concert 1 of 4 — Early Music Missouri presents Adoption, Adaption & Appropriation: Invasive Species in Mediterranean Musical Culture

Concert 2 of 4 — Musicians of the SLSO perform Gabriel Fauré’s two Piano Quintets

Concert 3 of 4 — Yin Xiong, Cello

with Nicolas del Grazia, Clarinet; and Peter Henderson, Piano

  • Sunday, February 9, 2025 • 2:00 p.m.
  • Enjoy our pregame musical performance before the Super Bowl!
  • Program to include: Carl Frühling & Johannes Brahms’s Trios for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano

Concert 4 of 4 — Scott Lyle, Guitarist & Composer

  • Sunday, April 13, 2025 • 3:00 p.m.
  • Program TBA

Maryville University Faculty Recitals — Peter Henderson, Piano

Celebrating Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924): A Solo Piano Recital

  • Monday, September 30, 2024 • 7:30 p.m.
  • Program will feature representative works from Fauré’s entire career

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): Complete Solo Piano Music, Recital 1 of 2

  • Saturday, April 5, 2025 • 7:30 p.m.
  • Recital 2 will take place during Fall 2025
  • Program TBA
Categories
SLSO

Artworks that inspired Adam Schoenberg’s Picture Studies

An hour before each of the SLSO’s mid-March 2024 “Romeo and Juliet” concerts, I will lead Pre-Concert Conversations. For these presentations (Saturday, 16 March, 6:30 p.m. & Sunday, 17 March, 2:00 p.m.), I’m honored that the renowned American composer Adam Schoenberg has agreed to join me onstage at the Stifel Theatre to discuss his 2012 orchestral work, Picture Studies, which the SLSO and The Big Muddy Dance Company will perform on these concerts.

Picture Studies is a “21st-century Pictures at an Exhibition” — like Modest Mussorgsky‘s 19th-century piano suite frequently performed in Maurice Ravel‘s splendid orchestration, Adam Schoenberg’s composition was inspired by several works of visual art. Picture Studies was commissioned by the Kansas City Symphony and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Please find below links to the Nelson-Atkins Museum’s webpages for each of the artworks that provided the impetus for Adam Schoenberg’s musical responses:

1. Intro

Features the piano — a reference to Mussorgsky’s “Promenade” from Pictures at an Exhibition)

2. Three Pierrots

Albert Bloch (American, 1882 – 1961): Die drei Pierrots Nr. 2 (The Three Pierrots No. 2) (1911) — Oil on canvas

3. Repetition

Kurt Baasch (American, born Venezuela, 1891 – 1964): Repetition (1913) — Platinum print

4. Olive Orchard

Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853 – 1890): Olive Trees (1889) — Oil on canvas

5. Kandinsky

Vasily Kandinsky (French, b. Russia, 1866 – 1944): Rose with Gray (1924) — Oil on pulpboard

6. Calder’s World

Alexander Calder (American, 1898 – 1976): Untitled (1936) — Painted metal, wood, and wire

7. Miró

Joan Miró (Spanish, 1893 – 1983): Women at Sunrise (1946) — Oil on canvas

8. Interlude (slightly varied reprise of the Intro)

9. Cliffs of Moher

Hiroshi Sugimoto (Japanese, born 1948): Atlantic Ocean, Cliffs of Moher (1989) — Triple-tone lithograph

10. Pigeons in Flight

Francis Blake (American, 1850 – 1913): Pigeons in Flight (1889) — Gelatin silver print
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Music at Maryville SLSO

Music at Maryville Spring 2024 Concert 3

Beethoven: String Quartet in C-sharp minor, op. 131 (1826)

Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor, S. 178 (completed 1853)

Wednesday, March 27, 2024 • 7:00 p.m. Maryville University AuditoriumDirections

Free Admission

The concert will not be live-streamed, and no recording will be available, so please consider enjoying this performance in person. Feel free to share this information with anyone you know who may be interested.

Artists

Kristin Ahlstrom, violin

Kristin Ahlstrom, violin
Kristin Ahlstrom, violin

Éva Kozma, violin

Éva Kozma, violin
Éva Kozma, violin

Shannon Farrell Williams, viola

Shannon Farrell Williams, viola
Shannon Farrell Williams, viola

Bjorn Ranheim, cello

Bjorn Ranheim, cello
Bjorn Ranheim, cello

Peter Henderson, piano

Peter Henderson, piano
Peter Henderson, piano

Musical Program

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, op.131 (1826) — ca. 45 minutes

Intermission

Franz Liszt (1811-1886): Les cloches de Genève (The Bells of Geneva): Nocturne from Années de pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage), Première année: Suisse (First Year: Switzerland), S.160 (1848-54) — ca. 7 minutes

Franz Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor, S. 178 (ca. 1842-53) — ca. 30 minutes

Brief Program Note

Performed by artists from the St. Louis Symphony, this recital features two towering masterpieces from the nineteenth century: Ludwig van Beethoven’s epic String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, op. 131, and Franz Liszt’s iconic Piano Sonata in B minor. According to Robert Schumann, Beethoven’s late quartets “stand…on the extreme boundary of all that has hitherto been attained by human art and imagination.” Renowned for his pianistic brilliance and embrace of literary drama in music of harmonic daring, Liszt showed incredible ingenuity in synthesizing his personal idiom with several formal influences — including Beethoven’s — in his staggering, single-movement Piano Sonata in B minor. We hope you’ll join us this evening to enjoy performances of two highly significant instrumental works.

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Music at Maryville SLSO

Music at Maryville Spring 2024 Concert 1

Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Winterreise (Winter Journey)

Sunday, February 4, 2024 • 3:00 p.m. Maryville University Auditorium • Directions

Free Admission

The concert will not be live-streamed, and no recording will be available, so please consider enjoying this performance in person. Feel free to share this information with anyone you know who may be interested.

Artists

Jeffrey Heyl, bass-baritone

Jeffrey Heyl, bass-baritone
Jeffrey Heyl, bass-baritone

Ann Choomack, flute

Ann Choomack, flute
Ann Choomack, flute

Peter Henderson, piano

Musical Program

Julius Schmid (1854-1935): "Schubertiade" (1897 oil painting)
Julius Schmid (1854-1935): “Schubertiade” (1897 oil painting)

Franz Schubert: Introduction and Variations on “Trockne Blumen” (“Withered Flowers”) for Flute and Piano, D. 802 (1824) — ca. 15 minutes

Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Winterreise (Winter Journey), Song Cycle for Voice and Piano, D. 911 (1827) — Texts: Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827) — ca. 70 minutes

  1. Gute Nacht (Good Night)
  2. Die Wetterfahne (The Weathervane)
  3. Gefrorene Tränen (Frozen Tears)
  4. Erstarrung (Numbness)
  5. Der Lindenbaum (The Linden Tree)
  6. Wasserflut (Flood Water)
  7. Auf dem Flusse (On the River)
  8. Rückblick (A Look Backward)
  9. Irrlicht (Will o’ the Wisp)
  10. Rast (Rest)
  11. Frühlingstraum (Dream of Spring)
  12. Einsamkeit (Solitude)
  13. Die Post (The Mail)
  14. Der greise Kopf (The Old Man’s Head)
  15. Die Krähe (The Crow)
  16. Letzte Hoffnung (Last Hope)
  17. Im Dorfe (In the Village)
  18. Der stürmische Morgen (The Stormy Morning)
  19. Täuschung (Illusion)
  20. Der Wegweiser (The Signpost)
  21. Das Wirtshaus (The Inn)
  22. Mut (Courage)
  23. Die Nebensonnen (The False Suns)
  24. Der Leiermann (The Hurdy-Gurdy Man)

Brief Program Note

This concert will celebrate the art of Franz Schubert (1797-1828). While Schubert did not tend toward overt virtuosity in his instrumental works, his variations for flute and piano on his own, previously composed song Trockne Blumen (Withered Flowers) are a brilliant showcase for the skills of the instrumentalists. The concert will conclude with Schubert’s final completed art song cycle, Winterreise (Winter Journey). A song cycle is the classical music equivalent of a concept album, in which each song is integral to a larger idea. The generally bitter songs of Winterreise explore a common Romantic theme: a young person’s despair upon being rejected by a lover. It is widely accepted that, by the end of the journey, the protagonist has descended into madness. As is typical in Schubert’s songs, the piano’s texture is varied to match visual or other cues in each song’s text, creating an astoundingly varied tapestry. Schubert’s Winterreise is considered one of the pinnacles of the art song tradition.

Categories
Music at Maryville SLSO

Last Maryville University concerts of Spring 2023

All free admission, in the Maryville University Auditorium

  • Friday, April 21, 11:00 a.m. — Student Recital 5 of 5
  • Friday, April 21, 7:00 p.m.Spring Concert: Notorious (Maryville’s Student A Cappella Group)
  • Saturday, April 22, 7:00 p.m.Senior Recital: Ashley McFarland
  • Sunday, April 23, 3:00 p.m.Music at Maryville 2022-23 Concert 5 of 5: Arianna String Quartet — Featuring works by Joseph Haydn, Frederick Tillis, and Felix Mendelssohn
  • Sunday, April 23, 7:30 p.m.Maryville University Faculty & Guests Recital: Chance Trottman-Huiet, tuba • Peter Henderson, pianoTrombones of the Saint Louis Symphony
  • Saturday, April 29, 4:00 p.m.Senior Recital: Hannah Fisher
  • Sunday, April 30, 7:00 p.m.Student Ensembles Concert: African Drumming Ensemble, University Chorus, Instrumental Ensembles
  • Monday, May 1, 7:30 p.m.Senior Recital: Breann Bartholomew
Categories
SLSO

Haydn piano concerto performances with the SLSO — Fri. 3/3 @ 7:30 p.m. & Sat. 3/4 @ 10:30 a.m.

My 2022-23 Haydn Project will soon conclude with culminating performances of Joseph Haydn‘s Keyboard Concerto No. 11 in D major, Hob. XVIII:11 (1784). I will perform the solo piano part of this work in St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) subscription concerts at Powell Hall conducted by Stephanie Childress on:

Program notes are available via this link.

If you’d like to hear this SLSO concert but can’t make it to Powell Hall this weekend, you’ll be able to tune into St. Louis Public Radio by clicking the play button near the top of their homepage on Saturday, March 4, at 8:00 p.m. CST (6:00 p.m. Pacific, 9:00 p.m. Eastern), and hear their broadcast of the March 4 morning concert. This broadcast will probably be offered only on the evening of Saturday, March 4 (it is unlikely to be available on demand).

Haydn Project 2022-23
Haydn Project 2022-23
Categories
Maryville Music at Maryville SLSO

About Peter Henderson

Peter Henderson, pianist
Peter Henderson, pianist

Standard bio (313 words)

A versatile pianist, Peter Henderson is active as a performer in orchestral, chamber, and solo settings. Henderson is currently Associate Professor of Music and Artist-in-Residence at Maryville University, where he has served on the faculty since 2005. Since 2015, Henderson has been the Principal Keyboardist of the Sun Valley Music Festival Orchestra. In September 2023, he began his tenure as Principal Keyboardist of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO).

During January and February 2016, Henderson was the piano soloist in the SLSO’s California tour performances of Olivier Messiaen’s Des Canyons aux étoiles… (From the Canyons to the Stars…). Critics described him as a “powerhouse soloist” (San Francisco Chronicle) and praised his Messiaen playing for its “intense focus and thrilling vibrancy” (San Jose Mercury News). His most recent solo appearances with the SLSO, in March 2023, featured performances of Joseph Haydn’s Keyboard Concerto No. 11. 

In addition to his regular ensemble performances with the SLSO, Henderson often delivers pre-concert lectures, introducing classical concert programs from Powell Hall’s stage.

Henderson’s discography includes collaborations with violinist David Halen, flutist Mark Sparks, bass trombonist Gerry Pagano, violist Jonathan Vinocour, and soprano Marlissa Hudson. His most recent solo album is A Celebration of African Composers for Piano (AMP AGCD 2706, released 2017). 

Henderson also occasionally composes music and works as a recording producer. Rückblick (Looking Back), his song without words for trombone and piano, appears on Gerry Pagano’s album Solitude, released 2018. Printed and electronic editions of Rückblick were issued by Ascenda Music Publishing in January 2024.

Henderson holds a Doctor of Music degree from Indiana University, Bloomington, where his main piano instructor was Dr. Karen Shaw; he had previously studied with Dr. Jay Mauchley at the University of Idaho, Moscow. Henderson and his wife Kristin Ahlstrom, the SLSO’s Associate Principal Second Violinist, live in St. Louis with their lively, sweet beagle/terrier-mix, Zinni.


Brief bio (220 words)

A versatile pianist, Peter Henderson is active as a performer in orchestral, chamber, and solo settings. Henderson is currently Associate Professor of Music and Artist-in-Residence at Maryville University, and Principal Keyboardist of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) and the Sun Valley Music Festival Orchestra.

Henderson was the piano soloist in the SLSO’s February 2016 California tour performances of Olivier Messiaen’s Des Canyons aux étoiles… (From the Canyons to the Stars…); his Messiaen playing was lauded for its “intense focus and thrilling vibrancy” (San Jose Mercury News). 

In addition to his regular ensemble performances with the SLSO, Henderson often delivers pre-concert lectures, introducing classical concert programs from Powell Hall’s stage.

Henderson’s discography includes collaborations with violinist David Halen, flutist Mark Sparks, and soprano Marlissa Hudson. His most recent solo album is A Celebration of African Composers for Piano (AMP AGCD 2706, released 2017).

Henderson also occasionally composes music. Rückblick (Looking Back), his song without words for trombone and piano, appears on Gerry Pagano’s album Solitude, released 2018. Printed and electronic editions of Rückblick were issued by Ascenda Music Publishing in January 2024.

Henderson holds a Doctor of Music degree from Indiana University, Bloomington. He and his wife Kristin Ahlstrom, the SLSO’s Associate Principal Second Violinist, live in St. Louis with their lively, sweet beagle/terrier-mix, Zinni.

Categories
SLSO

Chance Trottman-Huiet, tuba • Peter Henderson, piano • Trombones of the St. Louis Symphony — Free Faculty / Guest Recital — Sunday 4/23/2023 @ 7:30 p.m.

Concert will take place in the Maryville University Auditorium (click link for directions)

Free admission • Donations gratefully accepted


Recital Program

Eugène Bozza (1905-1991): Aria (transcribed for Tuba and Piano)

Robert Schumann (1810-1856): Adagio and Allegro (transcribed for Tuba and Piano)

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963): Sonata for Bass Tuba and Piano (1955)

  1. Allegro pesante
  2. Allegro assai
  3. Variationen

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963): Four Little Prayers of St. Francis of Assisi (arr. Conrad Henning for Three Trombones and Tuba)

  1. Salut, Dame Sainte (Avec révérenece, tourjours lié)
  2. Tout puissant (Majestueux)
  3. Seigneur, je vous en prie (Très expressif et vervent)
  4. Ô mes très chers frères (Bien calme)

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963): Sonata for Clarinet and Piano (transcribed for Tuba and Piano)

  1. Allegro tristamente
  2. Romanza
  3. Allegro con fuoco

Chance Trottman-Huiet, tuba
Chance Trottman-Huiet, tuba

Performers

  • Chance Trottman-Huiet, tuba
  • Peter Henderson, piano
  • Tim Myers, trombone
  • Jonathan Reycraft, trombone
  • Christopher Bassett, bass trombone
Categories
Music at Maryville SLSO

Haydn Project 2022-23

Haydn Project 2022-23

My 2022-23 music performance season will culminate with March 3 & 4, 2023, subscription concert performances with the St. Louis Symphony (SLSO) conducted by Stephanie Childress.

These SLSO concerts will feature Piano Concerto No. 11 by Joseph Haydn (1732-1809).

Leading up to these SLSO performances, I will also be exploring the vibrant musical legacy of Joseph Haydn by: