Pianist Stewart Goodyear Makes CMSDetroit Debut With Beethoven's Epic Diabelli Variations

The Chamber Music Society of Detroit's 2017-18 Midtown Series continues with American pianist Stewart Goodyear performing Beethoven's epic Diabelli Variations on Friday, February 16, 2018. The concert takes place at Schaver Music Recital Hall, located at 480 W. Hancock Street (between Cass & Second Avenues) in Midtown Detroit, on the Wayne State campus. Tickets priced at $30 for adults and $15 for students, all general admission, are available online at www.CMSDetroit.org or by phone at 313-335-3300. In addition, student rush tickets priced at $5 are available at the box office on concert night beginning at 7:45 PM.

This is the second of CMSDetroit's three-concert "Epic Piano Works" series this season, each one centered around a major concert-length solo piano piece. All follow an "inDepth" format, beginning with a brief spoken introduction to the piece followed by the performance, an audience Talk Back session with the artist, and then a Meet and Greet lobby reception with complimentary refreshments. The final concert of the series, on March 2, will feature Fredric Rzewski's groundbreaking Variations on "The People United Will Never be Defeated" performed by Ursula Oppens, who commissioned the piece and premiered it in 1976.

Proclaimed "a phenomenon" by the Los Angeles Times and "one of the best pianists of his generation" by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Stewart Goodyear has won acclaim as a concerto soloist, chamber musician, recitalist and composer. He has performed with such major U.S. orchestras as the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras, the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics and the Chicago, Pittsburgh and San Francisco Symphonies, and abroad with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Bournemouth Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony and NHK Symphony Orchestra, among others. Mr. Goodyear has degrees from The Royal Conservatory in Toronto, the Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School. Known as an improviser and composer, he has been commissioned by orchestras and chamber music organizations, and performs his own solo works. In recent seasons Mr. Goodyear has performed all 32 Beethoven Piano Sonatas in several major cities across the U.S.

Stewart Goodyear's award-winning discography includes works by Beethoven, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky. His recording of his own transcription of Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" was chosen by The New York Times as one of the best classical music recordings of 2015.