Sunday, February 15, 4 pm
BMC Chamber Music Concert Series

On Sunday, February 15 at 4 pm, the Brattleboro Music Center will present Anna Polonsky at Centre Congregational Church in Brattleboro, Vermont.

Pianist Anna Polonsky could stay in shape during the winter by pulling a sleigh loaded with concert reviews describing her playing: “varied and exciting, sublime and vivacious, charm and panache, intense passion and incredible phrasing” (all that from one reviewer!), “appealingly simple, playful, fun-loving,” “exceptional refinement,” “stunning and near perfect,” “dazzling virtuosity,” “sensitive and colorful,” and “charismatic.”

RogerEvansOnline.com says simply, “I must speak emphatically of Anna Polonsky. She is a pianist I will go to hear at every future opportunity.”
Anna Polonsky has appeared with the Moscow Virtuosi and Vladimir Spivakov, the Buffalo Philharmonic with JoAnn Falleta, the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and many others. Ms. Polonsky has collaborated with the Guarneri, Orion, and Audubon Quartets, and with such musicians as Mitsuko Uchida, David Shifrin, Richard Goode, Ida and Ani Kavafian, Cho-Liang Lin, Arnold Steinhardt, Anton Kuerti, Gary Hoffman, and Fred Sherry. She is regularly invited to perform chamber music at festivals such as Marlboro (where she will be in residence for one month this summer), Chamber Music Northwest, Seattle, Moab, Music@Menlo, Bridgehampton, Bard, and Caramoor, as well as at Bargemusic in New York City.
Ms. Polonsky has given concerts in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Alice Tully Hall, and the Stern, Weill and Zankel Halls at Carnegie Hall, and has toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. A frequent guest at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, she was a member of CMS Two during 2002-2004. In 2006 she took a part in the European Broadcasting Union's project to record and broadcast all of Mozart's keyboard sonatas, and in the spring of 2007 she performed a Carnegie Hall solo recital, inaugurating the Emerson Quartet’s Perspectives Series.
Anna Polonsky made her solo piano debut at the age of seven at the Special Central Music School in Moscow, Russia. She immigrated to the United States in 1990, and attended high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. She received her Bachelor of Music diploma from The Curtis Institute of Music, where she worked with the renowned pianist Peter Serkin, and continued her studies with Jerome Lowenthal, earning her Master's Degree from the Juilliard School. Polonsky was a recipient of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship in 2003. With the Marlboro violist Michael Tree and clarinetist Anthony McGill (who played at the inauguration of President Obama), she is a member of the newly formed Schumann Trio. In addition to performing, she serves on the piano faculty of Vassar College.
Richard Riley, Managing Director of the Brattleboro Music Center notes that “this is a ‘by-popular-demand’ return for Anna, who performed for us in 2007 with some of her colleagues from the Marlboro Music Festival.  Her fascinating recital program will highlight her extraordinary range and interpretive gifts.  Anna Polonsky is one of the really great pianists performing today.  What a privilege to bring her to Brattleboro.
February’s performance by Ms. Polonsky will include Debussy’s Images (oubliees); Piano Sonata No. 24 in F-sharp Major, Op. 78, À Thérèse by Beethoven; Le Baiser d’enfant Jesus
(The Kiss of the Infant Jesus) by Messiaen; Prelude in B Minor by Bach, arranged by Siloti; Le Cahier Romand by Honegger; and Waltzes, Op. 39 by Brahms.

Tickets for the February 15, 4 pm, Anna Polonsky concert at Centre Congregational Church in Brattleboro, Vermont can be purchased by calling the BMC at 802-257-4523 or on-line at brattleborotix.com. This concert is part of the Brattleboro Music Center’s Chamber Music Series. For additional information please visit bmcvt.org.

PROGRAM

Images (oubliees) (1894) by Claude Debussy
 
Piano Sonata No. 24 in F-sharp Major, Op. 78 ("À Thérèse") by Ludwig van Beethoven

Le Baiser d'enfant Jesus ("The Kiss of the Infant Jesus") by Olivier Messiaen

INTERMISSION
 
Prelude in B Minor by J.S. Bach, arr. Alexander Siloti
 
Le Cahier Romand (Notebook from French-speaking ["romande"] Switzerland) by Arthur Honegger
 
Waltzes, Op. 39 by Johannes Brahms
 

Tickets ($30, 20, 10) are available by calling the Brattleboro Music Center at 802-257-4523 or on-line at brattleborotix.org.