Stephen Drury: Charles Ives @ 150

October 20, 2024 marks the 150th birthday of America’s great original composer Charles Ives. Growing up in New England as the son of a bandmaster, Ives developed a uniquely American compositional voice.   His music includes ragtime, gospel hymns, parade marches, and wild, visionary dissonance, all woven into a sound never before heard in classical concert music. World renowned guest artist Stephen Drury will celebrate the Ives sesquicentennial two days after Ives’ birthday with a special performance of Ives’ complete sonatas for piano, including the monumental “Concord” sonata with its musical visions of Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne and the Alcott family, as well as the quirky and ironic “Three Page Sonata.”  30 for 30 composer Paul Beaudoin composed a piece that “suggests some of the wilder, fantastical adventures into the half-childlike, half fairy-like phantasmal realm” of the Concord Sonata. If you don’t see a form to puchase tickets below, please CLICK HERE!

PROGRAM

Stephen Drury, piano
CHARLES IVES AT 150

First Sonata Charles Ives
Adagio con moto
Allegro moderato; “In the Inn”
Adagio
“not for the lilies lying back in soft dress-circle
cushion to lap up pretty velvet sound with their
soft ears”; Allegro
Andante maestoso

Three Page Sonata Ives

INTERMISSION

brook line(s) Paul Beaudoin
first performance

Sonata #2, “Concord, Mass. 1840 – 1860” Ives
Emerson
Hawthorne
The Alcotts
Thoreau