In two years, the Gina Bachauer International Foundation will celebrate its 50th anniversary and the path leading toward the celebration of that milestone has been paved for the 2024-2025 concert season, by showcasing pianists who have been part of the Bachauer competitions and have established their footprints in the global music landscape. This season’s lineup includes the most recent silver medalist from last summer’s international artists competition, the last American to win the gold medal (in 2006) and two laureates from the second and third generation of Bachauer competitors.
The season opens this Friday (Sept. 27, 7:30 p.m.) with Anna Han, a laureate of the Bachauer and other international competitions,in recital titled Touchpoints, at the Jeanné Wagner Theatre in the Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts. She will offer works she considers her personal touchpoints of the vast piano literature, ranging from toccatas by Bach, Kabalevsky, Prokofiev and Unsuk Chin to Rachmaninoff’s monumental 2nd Sonata.
Han’s repertoire spans centuries, ranging from Bach to numerous contemporary composers. She is currently based in Berlin, where she recently completed her artist diploma from the Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin, as a student of Sir András Schiff and Schaghajegh Nostrati. Second prize winner of the 2023 Naumburg International Piano Competition and first prize winner of the 2023 National Federation of Music Clubs Young Artist Auditions, Han also is a laureate of The Bachauer’s International Junior Artists Competition.
Her musical sense of adventure has pointed to works such as John Corigliano’s Chiaroscuro (1997) for two pianos tuned a quarter tone apart; Charles Wuorinen’s Metagong (2008) for two pianos and two percussion; a series of original arrangements of works for organ and piano duo in collaboration with organist Daniel Ficarri; Jerome Begin’s Strange Gardens (2015) for two pianos, two bass clarinets, two percussion, and vocoder. She commissioned the chamber trio What’s Up, Kid? (2018), for clarinet, cello and piano from Malaysian composer Tengku Irfan.
Touchpoints is the apt thematic label for her recital in Salt Lake City, with works performed in clusters that highlight contrasts as well as connections that become apparent to the focused listener. Many of the pieces will be familiar to audiences but will also trigger fresh perspectives in how they are grouped in her performance, mixing different eras. Baroque Era selections include Couperin (Le tic-toc-choc ou Les maillotins and Les barricades mystérieuses), Scarlatti (Sonata in D Minor, K. 213) and Bach (Toccata in G Minor, BWV 915 and Sheep May Safely Graze (transcription by Egon Petri). The sole Romantic Era selection is Schumann’s Abendlied). Russian composers of the 20th century are extensively represented, particularly in their respective diverse musical language: Kabalevsky (Rondo-Toccata, op. 60, no. 4), Prokofiev (Toccata, op. 11), Shostakovich (Prelude and Fugue in A Major, op. 87, no. 7) and one of the titans in piano sonata literature, Rachmaninoff (Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor, op. 36). There are also two Romanian dances by Béla Bartók and a work from the current century, featuring Unsuk Chin’s Etude No. 5 (Toccata).
The concert series continues with Carter Johnson (Nov. 15) presenting The Four B’s, including works by Brahms, Bartók, Beethoven and Grażyna Bacewicz Biernacka, a 20th century Polish composer and violinist who died in 1959. Johnson won the silver medal in this year’s Bachauer International Artists Competition. He also won first prizes in the 2023 Concours Hauts-de-France, the 2021 International Competition of Polish Music, the 2020 Valsesia International Competition and the 2023 Weatherford College International Competition.
The 2025 portion of the season will feature Stephen Beus (Feb. 28) in the intriguingly titled program Nocturnes and Nightmares. Working with the theme of nighttime, he is planning to perform short works by Lera Auerbach, Amy Beach, Aaron Jay Kernis and Liszt, followed in the second half with Night Wind Sonata by Nikolai Medtner, a Russian contemporary of Rachmaninoff whose catalog has been resurrected from obscurity in recent years, most notably by many younger pianists.
The last American to win a Bachauer gold medal in this specific competition, Beus (2006) also took first place in the Vendome Prize International Competition in Lisbon and was awarded the Max I. Allen Fellowship of the American Pianists Association in Indianapolis. Now on the Brigham Young University faculty, he made his Carnegie Hall debut with the Juilliard Orchestra and James DePreist, playing Prokofiev Concerto No. 3. Born and raised on a farm in eastern Washington, Mr. Beus began lessons at age 5 and made his orchestral debut four years later. He went on to win numerous national and international competitions throughout his youth, capturing the attention of both audiences and critics. He has performed extensively across the USA and internationally, including Kazakhstan, Russia, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Georgia, China, France, Italy, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Morocco.
The season will close with Pasquale Iannone, a Bachauer laureate and juror (April 11) in a program titled Moments Musicaux, with selections by Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninoff and Moriz Rosenthal, a Polish pianists and composer who studied with Liszt and whose career spanned the last third of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. In addition to performing recitals, chamber music concerts and as soloist with orchestras around the world, he is a well known teacher with many students having gone on to win prizes at numerous international competitions. His recordings for the Phoenix Classical label have been well received.
For tickets and more information, see the Bachauer website.