Talented pianist plays Beethoven, Chopin, Martin, and Vine: 2 p.m. Sunday, March 1
TACOMA, Wash. – In the world of classical music, a turning point is often reached when a brilliant composer, who is a master of the music of the day, stretches his or her talents a little further. The new works thereby created reach into uncharted territory and are often highly influential on composers who follow.
Pianist Jooeun Pak ’04, visiting assistant professor and alumna of the University of Puget Sound, has selected four such pivotal pieces for her debut faculty recital. Her concert, titled Back to the Future—Featuring Beethoven, Martin, and Vine, will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 1, in Scheebeck Concert Hall. Everyone is welcome, and ticket information is below.
Pak chose Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sechs Bagatellen, Opus 126, the German master’s final piano composition, to open the program. The six short character pieces that make up a set invoke memories of Beethoven’s longer, grander works. Beethoven is said to have told his publisher that these six bagatelles—defined as short, unpretentious instrumental works—were “probably the best I’ve written.”
Following this, Pak will perform segments of Frank Martin’s Huit Préludes pour le Piano, written in 1948. The Swiss composer was known for a style that lent his own personal twist to Arnold Schoenberg’s 12-tone technique, which allowed him to maintain the music’s tonal integrity.
Frédéric Chopin’s Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Opus 52, was inserted by Pak in the middle of the concert to revisit her own memories of performing the Chopin piece for her senior recital at Puget Sound. Composed in 1842, the piece was one of four Chopin ballads for solo piano that may have pioneered the ballad as an abstract musical form.
The audience and pianist will together head “back to the future” with the evening’s final piece: Piano Sonata No. 1, by Australian contemporary classical music composer Carl Vine. The 1990 composition was created for the Sydney Dance Company. Its publisher described it as “full of rich chordal movements, unusual flowing harmonies, and tonalities, with great extremes of dynamism and energy.”
Jooeun Pak ’04 won the gold medal in the Korean National Competition at the age of 10 and has since won prizes in national and international piano competitions. She has appeared in major concert venues, including Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall, New York; Yamaha Hall in New York; Terrace Theater in The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; Landmark Concert Hall in Indianapolis; and Bennett Gordon Hall in Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute in Chicago. A highly versatile artist, Pak performs both standard and contemporary works in the chamber and orchestral settings. Her performances have been praised as “brilliant and supercharged” by renowned composer Don Freund, who wrote Rabble-Rouser…for Jooeun Pak, she performed in a world premiere.
Pak is an artistic director of Musik in Progress, a group that aims to spur living composers' performances and of undiscovered repertoires of substantial composers of the 20th century. Prior to joining Puget Sound as a visiting assistant professor, Pak was an associate instructor in Indiana University’s Secondary Piano Program and a faculty member for the university’s Young Pianist Program. She holds a Doctor of Music in piano performance and literature degree from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where she studied under the mentorship of distinguished professor Menahem Pressler.
FOR TICKETS: Tickets are available online at tickets.pugetsound.edu or Wheelock Information Center, 253.879.3100. Admission is $15 for the general public; $10 for seniors (55+), students, military, and Puget Sound faculty and staff. The concert is free for current Puget Sound students. Group ticket rates are available for parties of 10 or more by calling 253.879.3555 in advance. Any remaining tickets will be available at the door.
For directions and a map of the campus: pugetsound.edu/directions
For accessibility information, please contact accessibility@pugetsound.edu or 253.879.3236, or visit pugetsound.edu/accessibility.
Press photos of Jooeun Pak can be downloaded from pugetsound.edu/pressphotos.
Photos on page: Top right: Jooeun Pak; Above left: Frederik Chopin, by Ari Schaffer
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