Palm Beach Symphony's April 8 Concert To Feature Guest Pianist Anne-Marie McDermott

Pianist Anne-Marie McDermott will be Palm Beach Symphony’s featured soloist in Ludwig van Beethoven’s sublime Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15 during the Masterworks Series Concert at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 8 at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts.

“I first met Anne-Marie when I was a judge at the Young Concert Artists Competition, and she was one of the winners. I was very proud to vote for her,” said Palm Beach Symphony Music Director Gerard Schwarz. “She played the most exquisite Haydn sonata I’d ever heard at that time. She’s a beautiful musician, and I’m very excited to work with her here in Palm Beach.”

For more than 25 years, McDermott has played concertos, recitals and chamber music in hundreds of cities throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Music critics shower her with praise, one noting, “Anne-Marie McDermott plays with both technical virtuosity and evident joy. The music comes alive under her fingers.” In addition to several highly successful Artistic Directorships of important festivals and series, McDermott continues her tenure as Artistic Director of the Bravo! Vail Music Festival, which hosts world-renowned artists and orchestras.

Known especially for her brilliant interpretations of classical and early romantic repertoire, the breadth of her resume reaches from Bach, Haydn and Beethoven to Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev and Scriabin to works by today’s most influential composers. McDermott continues to perform with many leading orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, League of American Composers, Hong Kong Philharmonic, National Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the symphonies of Dallas, Seattle, Houston, Colorado, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Atlanta, San Diego, New Jersey, Columbus and Baltimore. She has also toured with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Moscow Virtuosi.

McDermott was a longtime member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center with whom she still collaborates and performs. She studied at the Manhattan School of Music and won the Mortimer Levitt Career Development Award for Women, the Young Concert Artists auditions and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. 

The orchestra will open the evening with William Grant Still’s Threnody: In Memory of Jean Sibelius, which pays tribute to Scandinavia’s most famous composer and premiered in 1965 at the University of Miami by Fabien Sevitzky.McDermott’s Beethoven piece will follow. After a brief intermission, the visionary landscapes of Claude Debussy’s rich and evocative La mer and Maurice Ravel’s rhapsodic masterpiece Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2, M.57b will bring the concert to a dramatic close.

French Impressionist composers Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy are contemporaries who masterfully used the vehicle of an orchestra to create visionary soundscapes. Both were ever resistant to the confines of normal harmonic practice. Part symphony and part tone poem, Debussy’s innovative La mer (The Sea) is a rich and evocative depiction of the ocean. It is one of the most influential and imaginative works in symphonic literature that has remained an audience favorite since its premiere in 1905.

A trained sailor, Debussy paid homage to the Seine River by naming La mer’s three movements “From Dawn to Noon on the Sea,” “Play of the Waves” and “Dialogue of Wind and the Sea.” “When you hear the first movement, you can envision the sea dramatically changing from the early morning to the middle part of the day, followed by a light scherzo movement and ending with a sense of being enveloped by waves,” Maestro Schwarz said. “The way he combines instruments such as a duet between the muted trumpet and English horn and the combination of percussion with harps creates so much color throughout the piece.”

Ravel’s rhapsodic masterpiece Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2 is extracted for concert use from his “Choreographic Symphony in Three Parts” conceived for Ballets Russes (Russian Ballet) with the most famous choreographer of the time, Sergei Diaghilev. Daphnis et Chloé, composed and revised from 1909-1912, employed the largest sized orchestra he would ever require. “This work is famous for an extended flute solo and for the motoristic rhythm in five,” Maestro Schwarz added. “It’s become a standard and is a virtuoso piece for the orchestra.”

Upon entering the Kravis Center lobby, guests will be treated to the joyous sound of The King’s Academy Jazz Ensemble led by Wesley Lowe, Smith Family Conservatory Director of Instrumental Arts.

Additional information about this concert and the “Encore” community concert featuring Kevin Kenner on piano (May 19)is available at PalmBeachSymphony.org. Individual tickets are on sale now and range in price from $25 to $95. Tickets may be purchased online at PalmBeachSymphony.org, by phone at (561) 281-0145 and at the Palm Beach Symphony Box Office weekdays from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. at 700 South Dixie Highway, Suite 100, West Palm Beach.

The Symphony will also present informal and informative Lunch and Learns on Thursday, April 3 and May 15 from noon to 1:30 p.m., hosted by Maestro Schwarz in the Symphony's conference room located in the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties building, 700 S. Dixie Hwy. in West Palm Beach. Guests will enjoy a three-course gourmet lunch catered by SandyJames Fine Food & Productions and a selection of wines curated by Palm Beach Symphony sponsor Private Cask Imports while deepening their connection with the musicians and performances through a glimpse behind the curtain of how the Symphony prepares for concerts, selects repertoire and more. They will learn about the subject matter and composer that will be performed during the upcoming concert, while enriching their concert experience. Tickets are $125 and complimentary valet parking will be provided.