Odyssey Concert Season: Of Things Past
Fri Apr 12, 7:30 PM - Fri Apr 12, 9:30 PM

Internationally-acclaimed pianist Jooeun Pak (Assistant professor of piano at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, CO) will present Florida premieres of pieces by American women composers Cherise Leiter and Caroline Kyunga Ahn, along with works by two of the most beloved composers of all time: Frederic Chopin and George Gershwin. These works are all linked by a remembrance of the past. The Waltz and Nocturne by Chopin both recall examples of the genres from previous generations, by Schubert, Weber, and John Field. Furthermore, they are both posthumous works; their very publication serving as a recollection of his life. Cherise Leiter reimagines one of the oldest forms of piano music, one that Chopin himself had revolutionized and mastered, in her 6 Etudes for piano. The nostalgic element continues with “Water Image, Reflection, and Memories” by Caroline Kyunga Ahn, the title of which invokes the theme of finding one’s own reflection in the past. In Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, American music found a new voice through the melding of things past and current; classical tradition with pioneering jazz. Few pieces evoke such nostalgia as this work, which calls us back to the golden era of the Roaring Twenties and the Jazz Age.