Playin’ in the rain
Pianist Clayton Stephenson is the answer to your winter blues
Get a stirring start to the new year at the piano spectacular presented by the Newport Symphony Orchestra at the Ocean this weekend. Van Cliburn Junior Piano Competition 2015 prizewinner Clayton Stephenson makes his Oregon Coast debut with a concert featuring Tchaikovsky’s perennially popular “Piano Concerto No. 1” on Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 15 and 16.
Named the 2017 U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, Lang Lang Music Foundation Young Scholar, Stephenson was admitted into the Juilliard Pre-College at the age of 10. He is also a prize winner of the 2016 Cooper International Competition.
Highlights of Clayton’s burgeoning career include recitals at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, the Kissinger Sommer Festival in Bad Kissinger and at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.
Currently, he is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in economics at Harvard University and a Master’s Degree in piano performance at the New England Conservatory with Wha Kyung Byun.
The concert also includes, “Rákóczy March from The Damnation of Faust,” by Hector Berlioz, an exciting orchestral showpiece, and “Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Symphony No. 2,” a piece by Joseph Bologne, suffused with a classical wit and grace reminiscent of Joseph Haydn. Bologne, an 18th-Century black Caribbean-French composer and swordsman was widely regarded as the most accomplished man of his age.
The final piece, “Three Latin American Dances,” was composed by Gabriela Lena Frank, who describes the work as an “unabashed tribute to the Symphonic Dances from ‘West Side Story’ by Leonard Bernstein.”
Of Peruvian heritage, Frank creates music that evokes the mountainous mysteries of the Andean world and celebrates the kaleidoscopic mestizo music of the South American Pacific coast. This vibrant and colorful work has been thrilling audiences since its premiere in 2004.
The concerts begin on both days at 7:30 pm, with the Saturday evening performance including a pre-concert talk by Conductor Adam Flatt at 6:45 pm.
Tickets are $27 and $42, plus fees, $10 for students. The Newport Performing Arts Center is located at 777 West Olive Street. For more information, tickets and COVID protocols, go to NewportSymphony.org or call 541-265-2787.