Image: Pascal Salomon, pianist
On Saturday, April 7 at 3 PM, the SANTA BARBARA MUSIC CLUB will present another program in its popular series of concerts of beautiful Classical music. The concert will be held at First United Methodist Church, 305 East Anapamu Street (at Garden). Admission is free. One of the highlights of Santa Barbara Music Club’s concerts is the opportunity for audiences to hear great music from a variety of historical periods, with a diversity of musical forms, performed by excellent artists. The April 7 concert features pianist Pascal Salomon playing J.S. Bach’s English Suite #3 in G minor, Frédéric Chopin’s Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48, No. 1 and Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61, and Claude Debussy’s L’isle joyeuse.
Program Details
(1862-1918)
Notes on the Program
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was a preeminent composer of the Baroque Era. A renowned keyboard virtuoso, his six English Suites, composed between 1715 and 1720, are the first of his large-scale keyboard works. Thought to have been composed for an English nobleman, they are based on traditional dance forms, with a prelude preceding the movements. The English Suite in G minor consists of six delightfully contrasting sections: a rhythmically piquant Prelude, elegant Allemande, energetic Courante, thoughtful Sarabande, perky Gavottes I & II, and playful Gigue.
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) is best known for his music for solo piano, running the gamut from heartbreaking simplicity to dazzling virtuosity. Together, the works on this concert cover that entire spectrum. The Nocturne in C minor, Op.48, No. 1 delineates the profundity of Chopin’s emotional powers, with the unassumingly innocent opening leading inexorably to the bold octave-laden power that forms the middle section; the opening melodic figuration returns, now enhanced and bolstered with bravura from the previous section, and this beautiful work winds down to form a peaceful and resigned conclusion. Replete with formal intricacy as well as harmonic complexity, the Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61, true to its title, is a composition inspired by both the Polish polonaise dance meter and the fantasy-like expressions of the composer’s musical imagination.
Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was a French composer whose compositional innovations had a profound influence on generations of composers. L’isle joyeuse (The Joyful Island) was composed in 1904 and was inspired by Watteau’s painting Embarkation for Cythere.
The Performer
Pascal Salomon, pianist, was born in Israel, grew up in France, and has concertized as recitalist, concerto soloist, and chamber music pianist to great acclaim in China, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Moldova, Spain, Switzerland, and the U.S. He has been featured soloist with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Sinfonietta of Lausanne, La
Sinfonietta de Genève, Orchestre du Capital-Toulouse, and the National Chamber Orchestra of Moldova, and has performed in major concert venues including Toulouse Capitole (France), Iasi Philharmonic Hall (Romania), Ernest Ansermet Concert Hall-Geneva and Stravinski Auditorium-Montreux (Switzerland), and Forbidden City Concert Hall-Beijing (China).
He studied at the Conservatoire National de Musique de Paris, earned the Virtuosity Degree at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique de Genève, Switzerland, and was selected for master classes with Paul Badura-Skoda, Jeremy Denk, Murray Perahia, Andras Schiff, and György Sebök. In 2017 he completed his DMA Degree at UCSB, under the mentorship of Paul Berkowitz and Dr. Lee Rothfarb; his research lecture was an in-depth study of music phenomenology from a performer’s standpoint.
Awarded “Best French Pianist” at the Senigallia International Competition in Italy, he was winner of the Maria Canals International Competition in Barcelona and received the Young Performers Scholarship from the “Société de Musique d’Yverdon-les-Bains” (Switzerland). UCSB honors included the Martin Kamen Fellowship, Ernö Daniel Memorial Prize for Distinguished Performance in Piano, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Grant, and Graduate Division Dissertation Fellowship.
His CD recordings include Pascal Salomon Plays Schumann, by ART Records, Czech Portraits, with violist Jacob Adams, by Centaur Records, and a live concert recording, Chopin, Ravel, Schubert, by the National Radio in Iasi, Romania.
Dr. Salomon taught piano at the Geneva Conservatory for nine years and presented master classes in Romania (University of Art and College of Music in Iasi), in Hungary (Crescendo Summer Institute of Art), and in China (Yunnan Institute of Arts). He is currently building the upcoming Santa Barbara Conservatory of Music, which will offer a complete music education for grades 1-12 in the Santa Barbara area with a mentorship approach and possible scholarships.
