Gayle Martin, Piano Artistry

The Allegheny-Clarion River Valley foliage will be full color. Have a Golden Sunday Afternoon on October 19 and enjoy Glorious Music and Art in the Beautiful Allegheny River Valley.

imagesAt 2:00 PM on October 19 in Lincoln Hall, internationally acclaimed pianist, Gayle Martin, will perform a program of  Liszt, Chopin, Prokofiev and Schubert – followed by a Meet the Artist Reception and Red Brick Gallery opening from 3:00 – 5:00 PM of Amy Lindenberger’s provocative exhibit of “Life in the Midst of the Civil War:  The Civil War Colored Pencil Paintings”.

From Moscow to Buenos Aires and New York to Los Angeles – in concertos and recital – internationally acclaimed pianist Gayle Martin’s “deep seated emotional response to the music” (Washington Post) creates “A truly magical atmosphere”.  Allegheny RiverStone Center for the Arts is pleased to bring Gayle back by popular demand on Sunday, October 19 at 2:00 PM in Foxburg’s Lincoln Hall  She will certainly mesmerize her audience with her “brilliant, moving and always beautiful” piano artistry.

In addition to Chopin Mazurkas and Valse Brilliante, selections from Prokofiev’s ballet, Romeo and Juliet, and Liszt’s Dedication, Gayle will perform masterworks by Franz Schubert – an Impromptu and the Wanderer Fantasy, considered to be one of the most demanding compositions for the piano.

Tickets:  Adults $25, ARCA Members $20, Students $10   To reserve tickets, please call 724 659-3153

In her last appearance in Lincoln Hall a few years ago, pianist Gayle Martin HenryIMG_0417 - Version 2 expertly colored the musical paintings of Ravels Pictures at an Exhibition.  Her performance is still recalled by audiences.  The first American woman to be a finalist in the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition, Gayle has been busy performing with orchestras across the United States, including a recent performance at Disney Hall in Los Angeles, the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where she played the Grieg concerto.

Allegheny RiverStone Center for the Arts welcomes Gayle back to it’s Steinway Grand Piano, continuing an outstanding series of superior keyboard soloists.

ABOUT GAYLE MARTIN

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow provided posterity with many gems and among them is this poignant statement: “Ah, how good it feels!  The hand of an old friend.”   In a performance on Sunday, October 19, 2:00 PM at Lincoln Hall in Foxburg, Allegheny RiverStone Center for the Arts doubles the pleasure with the return, by popular demand, of an old friend, internationally acclaimed pianist Gayle Martin.  In the artistry of her hands, you are sure to experience musical and technical mastery.

Gayle Martin has had a distinguished career as a concert artist, achieving international prominence as the sole American Laureate of the sixth International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow, and only the third American woman ever to reach the finals.  A native of Texas, she was one of the very last students of the famous pedagogue, Madame Rosina Lhevinne at the Juilliard School, where she was awarded the very prestigious Josef Lhevinne Prize.  She also studied with the well-known Seymour Bernstein, who is the subject of a recent documentary featured in the New York, Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals this Fall.  Her M.A degree was earned at New York University, where she was on the faculty for five years.

Her most recent highlight was a performance of the Beethoven “Emperor” Concerto with the California Philharmonic at the Ambassador Theater in Pasadena.  Other performances include appearances with the Houston Symphony (since age 12), the Moscow Radio Philharmonic, the Maracaibo Symphony, the Denver Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Amarillo, Virginia and Battle Creek Symphony Orchestras, the Central New Jersey Symphony, and the Philharmonia Virtuosi of New York.  She has toured throughout South America, including an engagement in Buenos Aires at the Teatro Colón with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Argentina.  In 2004, her performance with the Moravian Philharmonic of Judith Shatin’s Piano Concerto, “The Passion of St. Cecilia,” was released by Capstone Records.

Additional concerts include performances at Lincoln Center in New York, at the White House and at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and numerous other appearances throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, Mexico, England, Austria, Poland, Israel, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Mainland China.

Reviewers have written of “her intense passion and deep-seated emotional response to the music” (Washington Post), and that “this was a performance which, if recorded on 78s, could have fooled the average pianophile into thinking he or she was listening to one of the greats of the past.” (Woodstock Times).

In reviewing her Alice Tully Hall recital at Lincoln Center, the New York Times reported that she created “a truly magical atmosphere…and made this listener smile with pleasure.”  Following a recent performance of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto, the critic Courtenay Cauble wrote: “Gayle Martin has it all.  The depth of feeling is always there…because she makes the music her own and then communicates it, as any real artist must learn to do.  Her performance was both brilliant and moving, and always beautiful.”

A theme running through some of ARCA’s late season programming features works that composers have written for the dance.  Ms. Henry has chosen selections from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet Ballet Suite and several works by Frederic Chopin for this occasion.  Additional offering will include the “Wanderer Fantasy” and the Impromptu by Franz Schubert.

Longfellow was astute in his observation.  At a post-concert reception at the Red Brick Gallery in Foxburg announcing the opening of a new exhibition featuring the Civil War paintings of Amy Lindenberger, take the hand of ARCA’s old friend Gayle Henry and see how good it does feel.

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