Tenor Mark Padmore and pianist Jonathan Biss perform on Sunday, March 12 at 3 p.m. in Memorial Chapel. A pre-concert lecture with Jan Swafford will precede the performance at 1:30 p.m. in Karp Hall.
The series presents the eminent British tenor Mark Padmore and the renowned American pianist Jonathan Biss in a special collaboration of late Schubert works, featuring his final song cycle, Schwanengesang (Swan Song), D. 957 and the Piano Sonata in A Major, D. 959. The program will be preceded by a free lecture by famed music biographer Jan Swafford.
Padmore has performed with the world’s leading orchestras including the Berlin, Vienna, New York and London philharmonics, and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. He famously sang the Evangelist role in the widely-acclaimed productions of the St. Matthew and St. John passions by Peter Sellars and the Berlin Philharmonic. He recently portrayed the leading role in George Benjamin’s ‘Written on Skin’ with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, and the Mostly Mozart Festival. Regular recital partners include Kristian Bezuidenhout, Imogen Cooper, Julius Drake, Till Fellner and Paul Lewis.
Last season, Biss appeared with Berlin’s Konzerthaus Orchestra; the Sydney and Melbourne symphonies; the Philadelphia Orchestra; the BBC Scottish, Atlanta, and New Jersey symphonies; and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. He toured with the Doric Quartet, and performed at Wigmore Hall and the Concertgebouw with Lisa Batiashvili, Antoine Tamestit, and Jean-Guihen Queyras. Biss has embarked on a nine-year, nine-disc recording cycle of Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas, and he reached the halfway point in early 2016, when he released the fifth volume. His recent albums for EMI won Diapason d’Or and Edison awards.
Individual tickets are $30. All students are free. For information, call (518) 388-6080 or click here.