Michelle Cann Will Perform Grieg Piano Concerto

Two-time GRAMMY Award winner Michelle Cann, lauded champion of Florence Price's music, displays her versatility performing repertoire of the mid-Romantic period at Princeton Symphony Orchestra (PSO) concerts February 7-8. She performs Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16 on a program with 2024 GRAMMY recipient Jessie Montgomery's Records from a Vanishing City and Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36. Kenneth T. Bean conducts both performances at Richardson Auditorium.

Bean says, “Michelle Cann and I first worked together years ago as teaching artists, and it's been inspiring to watch her artistic journey unfold. To now share the stage with her at this moment in her career is deeply meaningful, and I'm thrilled to collaborate with such an extraordinary musician.”

MICHELLE CANN is one of the most sought-after artists of her generation. Recent engagements include appearances with Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and Los Angeles Philharmonic, among others. She is a recipient of the Sphinx Medal of Excellence and the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, and she served as the inaugural Christel DeHaan Artistic Partner of the American Piano Awards. Cann's 2025-26 season includes appearances with the Colorado Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, and Ireland's National Symphony Orchestra. She also performs the world premiere of a new piano concerto by Valerie Coleman with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. Her acclaimed debut solo album Revival was released in 2023. Her recording of Florence Price's Piano Concerto in One Movement with the New York Youth Symphony won a GRAMMY Award in 2023 for Best Orchestral Performance. She won a GRAMMY Award in 2025 for Beyond the Years: Unpublished Songs of Florence Price.

KENNETH T. BEAN has built a reputation for inspiring musicians and audiences alike through dynamic performances and a deep commitment to artistic excellence. Currently, Kenneth serves as the Georg and Joyce Albers-Schonberg Assistant Conductor of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, where his responsibilities include leading the Symphonic Orchestra of the Youth Orchestra of Central Jersey. He also currently serves as assistant conductor of Symphony in C where he co-directed the Symphony in C Summer Music Camp and served as the founding music director of the Symphony in C Youth Orchestra, leading the ensemble from its inception in 2014 through the 2023–24 season. Kenneth has collaborated with some of the country's most esteemed musicians, including violinist Jennifer Koh, cellist Thomas Mesa, Philadelphia Orchestra Concertmaster David Kim, and Metropolitan Opera Orchestra Principal Trumpet Billy Hunter. His guest conducting engagements have included appearances with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Princeton Symphony Orchestra, Symphony in C, Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, Oberlin Sinfonietta and the American Repertory Ballet, where he conducted the world premiere of Ethan Stiefel's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Jessie Montgomery's Records from a Vanishing City is a tone poem based on the composer's recollections of the music that surrounded her as she grew up on Manhattan's Lower East Side in the 1980s and 1990s. Edvard Grieg's romantic Piano Concerto is the only concerto Grieg completed, and is among his most popular works. Ludwig van Beethoven omitted the then conventional minuet from his Second Symphony, revealing a lighter side with humorous motifs in the scherzo and final movement.