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Sunday March 12, 2022
Emerson Avenue Salonlines Proudly Presents
a Live YouTube Broadcast
– A “hybrid” concert –
Sam Post and Ralitza Patcheva
piano
Syncopated Neo-Baroque and the Well-“Tampered” Clavier
Celebrating the 300th anniversary of the “Well Tempered Clavier”, Book 1
Sam Post & Ralitza Patcheva play music by JS Bach and Sam Post, but not like you’ve heard it before. Through Sam’s arrangements of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, and his own music—inspired by the Baroque, but infused with his own style—they’ll guide you on a rhythmic journey full of surprise and syncopation. This is the second concert in their series celebrating the 300th anniversary of Bach’s monumental masterpiece. We hope you’ll join us.
Program
(Sam)
Bach: excerpts from French Suite 6
Allemande, Gavotte, Minuet, Bourreé
(Ralitza)
Post: excerpts from Syncopated Suite no. 2
Sarabande, Gavotte, Gigue
(Sam)
Bach / Post: Prelude, Prelude and Fugue in D minor from the Well-“Tampered” Clavier
(Ralitza)
Prelude, Prelude and Fugue in F minor from W”T”C
Prelude, Prelude and Fugue in G major from W”T”C
(Sam)
Prelude, Prelude and Fugue in G minor from W”T”C
(Ralitza)
Prelude and Fugue in A Major from W”T”C
(Sam)
Prelude and Fugue in B-flat minor from W”TC
Biography
Equally at home composing for orchestra, playing Bach at the piano, or crossing over into pop, Sam Post is forging a career across styles and between genres. The Washington Post has praised his abilities at the piano (“confident, sensitive…a pianist with drive and intelligence”), the Bay Area Reporter lauded his chamber symphony (“Post has created a breathtaking musical joy ride”), and luminaries such as Renée Fleming have commended his overall musicianship (“incredibly gifted”).
In 2016 Sam subbed as an accompanist to Yo-Yo Ma and Renee Fleming at the Kennedy Center. After hearing Sam play one of his own compositions in their rehearsal, Ma promptly recommended him to Michael Tilson Thomas at the San Francisco Symphony for a string quartet commission on Kazakh folk themes by late dombra player Karshyga Akhmedyarov, whose daughter Raushan plays in the symphony. After the premiere of the resulting “Sketches from Kazakhstan,” the Symphonythen commissioned him to turn it into a chamber symphony for their SoundBox concert series in December 2017. Baltimore Chamber Orchestra gave the East Coast premiere in February 2022.
In 2016 Sam co-founded Kassia Music and has written and performed dozens of new pieces with the group from duos to sextets. The group is the current ensemble-in-residence at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Bethesda, MD, where they play concerts and present educational chamber music and compositional workshops. Sam also collaborates extensively with pianists Ralitza Patcheva and Carlos Cesar Rodriguez, and is a musician-owner and musician-council member at Groupmuse. He is on the piano and composition faculty at Levine Music, and teaches in the DC area.
Sam is the only five-time prizewinner in the history of the Fidelio Composition Competition for piano out of thousands of participants from more than 30 countries. He won the 2021 and 2022 World Championship Old-Time Piano “New Rag” Competitions with Lighthouse Rag and Angels’ Watch Rag-Waltz. Sam’s 2017 solo album “Dizzy Days” made W. Royal Stokes’ notable jazz releases that year and was featured on the cover of the Syncopated Times. Sam is the recipient of multiple Levine faculty grants, an Emergent Seed grant, commissions from the San Francisco Symphony and Palisades Virtuosi. He won the 2014 Wonderlic Piano Competition, the 2017 and 2018 Misbin Memorial Chamber Music Competitions, and Honorable Mention at the 2013 Heida Hermanns International Competition, in all cases playing his own original compositions.
Find Sam on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube etc., or at sampostpiano.com.
Pianist Ralitza Patcheva has been called a “phenomenon” (The Washington Post) and praised for her “elegant pianistic technique”, “courageous, innovative interpretation” and “crystal tone; amalgamation of witty virtuosity, powerful expression and profound sensitivity”. She is a prizewinner of the 51st International Piano Competition ” Ferruccio Busoni” and the Washington International Piano Competition, as well as the “Accademia di Citta di Pinerolo” International Chamber Music Competition ( in a duo with cellist Vasily Popov).
Dr. Patcheva has presented numerous performances in the United States and Europe. She is known for thoughtful programming that is equally dedicated to well-known and lesser known works of past centuries, and works by composers of our time.
Some highlights of past concert seasons include: A Room with a Symphony, featuring Otto Singer’s solo piano transcription of Symphony #1 by J. Brahms; J. S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations; harpsichord recitals of music by J. Ph.Rameau with harpsichordist Lois Narvey; performance collaborations with pianist/composer Sam Post featuring his music and J.S.Bach’s Art of Fugue and Musical Offering; participation in the Rome School cycle of the complete piano sonatas of Beethoven; Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring with pianist Carlos Rodriguez; Messiaen’s Vision de l’Amen with Dr. Ivo Kaltchev; duo recitals with pianist Jeremy Filsell; numerous piano quartet collaborations with Marcolivia Duo and Vasily Popov featuring works by R. Clarke, L. Heritte-Viardot and Frances McKay; Astor Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires with the group Black Oranges.
Since 2002 Ralitza co-directs the Chamber Music At Noon Series at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington DC with cellist Vasily Popov. The series offers free concerts on the first Thursday of every month. Ralitza has also presented performances at the Conversations at the Kreeger Museum, the Phillips Collection, the Arts Club and other popular concert locations in DC. In 2015 she commenced the Great Composers Club at Levine Music, a program featuring performance and discussion of symphonic works in solo piano arrangements, as well as a chance to meet with and hear the music of composers of our time.
At present Ralitza Patcheva is the associate chair of the chamber music program and a member of the piano faculty at Levine Music and a lecturer in piano and chamber music at the Rome School of Music, Drama and Art at the Catholic University of America.
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