Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

January Classical Offerings: Organ Recitalist JEREMY FILSELL Kimmel Center Debut, Jan. 21, Keyboard Conversations w. JEFFREY SIEGEL Romantic Music of Liszt, Jan. 8

DECEMBER 21, 2011


Jeremy Filsell, organist

Jeremy Filsell, organist

The Fred J. Cooper Memorial Organ Series

Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 3pm

Ticket price: $19-$28

 

“I can't think when I've heard such exciting organ playing....a fiery player, one who understands that music rarely wants to relax too much....this is playing of a remarkable rhythmic nuance.” —The American Organist

 

Virtuoso organist Jeremy Filsell makes his Kimmel Center recital debut, as part of the Fred J. Cooper Memorial Organ series on Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 3pm.  The Oxford University seasoned organ scholar is a Limpus prize winner, and acclaimed recitalist who is one of only a few virtuoso performers on both the piano and the organ.  Jeremy Filsell is known for providing riveting organ recitals showcasing powerful and poetic repertoire. 

 

His program includes his own transcription of Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances Op. 45 and Etude- Tableau Op. 39, no. 9 in D major; Dupré’s Prelude & Fugue in E minor, Opus 36, no. 1 and Prelude, Fugue in A-flat, Opus 36, no. 2, Prelude & Fugue in C, Opus 36, no. 3; Bossi’s Giga Op. 73; and Sowerby’s Prelude on ‘Were you there’ (1953).

 

Tickets for Jeremy Filsell are available at $19 to $28, and can be purchased by calling 215-893-1999, online at kimmelcenter.org, or at the Kimmel Center Box Office located on Broad and Spruce streets, Philadelphia, PA 19102 (open daily from 10am to 6pm, later on performance evenings).

 

Evincing an acutely comprehensive percipience of the organ and the subtleties of its command, Jeremy Filsell completed a Ph.D. at Birmingham Conservatoire/Birmingham City University examining the aesthetic and interpretative issues in the music of the French organist Marcel Dupré. The critically acclaimed instrumentalist has performed as a solo pianist in Russia, the United States, across the United Kingdom and has appeared regularly at St John's Smith Square, the Wigmore and Conway Halls in London. He has worked with the BBC Singers and orchestras under Stephen Cleobury, Pierre Boulez, Barry Wordsworth and Ronald Corp, as répétiteur for renowned conductors Sir John Eliot Gardner, Vernon Handley and Sir Charles Groves and he was pianist with the European Contemporary Music Ensemble between 1989 and 1991.

 

“Filsell's astonishing interpretative and technical skills make for compulsive listening...this series sets the standard for Dupré interpreters of the future and is a landmark in the history of organ recordings...few British players can match his flair...superbly insightful...truly distinguished, compelling and unquestionably authoritative performances.” – Gramophone

 

His concerto repertoire encompasses Mozart and Beethoven through to Rachmaninoff (2nd & 3rd Concertos), Shostakovich and John Ireland. In recent years, he has recorded for Guild the solo piano music of Eugene Goossens, Herbert Howells, Johann Carl Eschmann, Bernard Stevens and the two Sonatas of Liszt's pupil Julius Reubke.  Classic CD magazine commented that in his pianism “he does not attract for his virtuosity but for his ability to make the music unfold with irresistible logic and clarity: music-making of the highest calibre.”

 

In 2004, he recorded the six Organ Symphonies of Louis Vierne on the 1890 Cavaillé-Coll organ in St Ouen Rouen for Signum (BBC Radio 3's Disc of the Week September 2005). Recent recording projects (2010/11) have included two discs of French Mélodies for Naxos (by Vierne, Widor, Dupré and Tournemire) with Michael Bundy (Baritone), and one of Rachmaninov's piano music for Signum (Sonata no. 2 in Bb Op. 36, Etudes-Tableaux Op.33 and Preludes Op. 32).  In 1999/2000 he recorded the complete organ works of Marcel Dupré (12 CDs) for Guild, Gramophone magazine commenting that it was ‘one of the greatest achievements in organ recording…' and 'Filsell’s astonishing interpretative and technical skills make for compulsive listening…truly distinguished, compelling and unquestionably authoritative performances; Filsell has phenomenal technique.’

 

He lives and works now principally in the United States and combines international performing and teaching activities with being artist-in-residence at Washington National Cathedral. He is pianist with the Burghersh Piano Trio (with colleagues, Oliver Lewis, Violin and Neil Heyde, Cello), who perform regularly in Chamber Music series within the United Kingdom.

 

 

Jeffrey Siegel’s Keyboard Conversations®

From Heart to Art: The Romantic Music of Franz Liszt

Monday, January 9, 2012

Ticket price: $30

 

Acclaimed pianist Jeffrey Siegel continues his Keyboard Conversations® concert-plus-commentary series on Monday, January 9, 2012 at 7:30pm with Jeffrey Siegel exploring the music of 19th Century’s quintessential “rock star,” Franz Liszt, in a program entitled From Heart to Art: The Romantic Music of Franz Liszt.  The second concert of the three-part educational series includes Liszt’s The Years of Pilgrimage- Second Year: Italy,  Rigoletto Paraphrase, Liebesträume, No. 3, and Hungarian Rhapsodies, No. 13; as well as two transcriptions by Franz Liszt including Robert Schumann’s Spring Night and Frédéric Chopin’s The Maiden’s Wish.

 

Keyboard Conversations concludes on Monday, April 9, 2012 with Jeffrey Siegel’s commentary and performance of The Power and Passion of Brahms, which explores the intricacies of Brahms’ most treasured compositions.

 

“The Leonard Bernstein of the piano—Siegel’s programs strengthen the bonds between the music and the listener and are as welcome as they are rare.” —Chicago Tribune

 

Tickets for Keyboard Conversations® with Jeffrey Siegel are available at $30, and can be purchased by calling 215-893-1999, online at kimmelcenter.org, or at the Kimmel Center Box Office located on Broad and Spruce streets, Philadelphia, PA 19102 (open daily from 10am to 6pm, later on performance evenings).

 

Jeffrey Siegel has been a soloist with the world's great orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Moscow State Symphony, all the major London orchestras, the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra and many others. As a conductor, he has collaborated with luminaries such as Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit, Neeme Järvi, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas and David Zinman, among others. He has led the Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and Saint Louis Symphony Orchestras, The Minnesota Orchestra and The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, as well as orchestras in France, Scandinavia and South America.  

 

In June 2006, Siegel released four CDs of Keyboard Conversations®: Mozart and Friends, The Power and Passion of Beethoven, The Romanticism of the Russian Soul and The Romance of the Piano (Random House Audio Publishing Group). Most recently, Siegel released a new CD entitled Music for the Young - and Young At Heart (2009), available exclusively at his concerts. Following the celebrated reception of Keyboard Conversations® in the United Kingdom last season, Keyboard Conversations continue in April and May 2012 at London’s newest arts complex, Kings Place.

 

 “Jeffrey Siegel has everything: massive technique, musical sensitivity and character, wide tonal resources, immense reserves of power, and the ability to communicate.”

—Los Angeles Times

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Kimmel Center, Inc., a charitable, not-for-profit organization, owns, manages, supports and maintains The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, which includes Verizon Hall, Perelman Theater, Innovation Studio and the Merck Arts Education Center.  Kimmel Center, Inc. also manages the Academy of Music, owned by the Philadelphia Orchestra Association, and the University of the Arts Merriam Theater. Kimmel Center, Inc.’s mission is to operate a world class performing arts center that engages and serves a broad audience which includes providing arts in education, community outreach and a rich diversity of programming.  The 2011/2012 season is sponsored by Citi.  For additional information, visit kimmelcenter.org. 

 

 

 

 

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