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Sunday, August 25 2024
— a “hybrid” event —
Juliana Soltis & Alex Hassan
Cello & Piano
Out on a Limb
Emersonians: Alex Hassan, piano syncopator in residence (“So vot else iz noo??”, as he most certainly would comment), has a delightful surprise this coming Sunday night, Aug. 25th: joining the festivities will be guest artist, and fellow Richmonder, Juliana Soltis, cellista extraordinaire. Yes, Alex’s fans can still expect a dollop of his between-the-wars popular piano stylizations, fear not, but Lady Juliana and the pianoodler will present an unjustifiably obscure masterwork of the late Romantic concert cello repertoire, Dohnanyi’s KONZERTSTÜCK that’ll make particularly susceptible audience members swoon. Guaranteed!
Juliana’s gotten some of that Late Romantic w/a Beat itch, so don’t be surprised, following the Dohnanyi performance, to hear a group of really lovely pop toons of the [mostly] 30s, all composed by women songwriters of Tin Pan Alley, given a rhythmic chamber music treatment. Only here!
So, once again, click the “Watch” button above on Sunday night, the 25th, 7:30PM and revel in a program of quite extraordinary beauty (and fun, don’t worry!)–
BIOGRAPHY
Raised amidst the diverse musical traditions of southern Appalachia, cellist Juliana Soltis inspires audiences the world over with “exquisite, heart-rending” (Early Music America) performances that are redefining classical music. A “true virtuoso” (Classical Music), Juliana delights in connecting listeners with the forgotten stories of classical music.
Hailed as one of the most fearlessly innovative and creative cellists of her generation for her “serious musicianship and inquiring mind” (Gramophone), Ms. Soltis has headlined the BRQ Vantaa (Finland) Fringe Series for Emerging Artists, appeared at the Boston Early Music Festival, and has been featured on the Millennium Stage Series at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.
A passionate recording artist, Juliana’s 2017 debut, Entrez, le Diable! (Acis), garnered both international attention and critical acclaim – “[a] fierce display of impassioned rhetoric” (Gramophone) – with Classical Music’s Colin Clarke proclaiming it “beyond criticism” and “a stunning release.” Her eagerly-anticipated sophomore offering, Going Off Script (King Street Records, 2019) was met with similarly enthusiastic praise for her unprecedented and highly-taboo exploration of the long-lost art of improvisation in Bach’s beloved Cello Suites: “You’ve never heard Bach played this way before,” declared Steve Staruch (Classical Minnesota Public Radio), while Japan’s Yomiuri Shinbun marveled that “never did one think the heart could be so moved by a cello alone.”
Ever drawn to the fringes of her art form, in October 2024 Ms. Soltis will release her third studio album, American Woman, on the PARMA Recording Group’s Grammy-winning Navona label. Featuring works for cello and piano by Mary Howe, Amy Beach, Margaret Bonds, Helen C. Crane, Dorothy Rudd-Moore, and Florence Price, the album celebrates the lost legacy of America’s women composers – all of whom were highly-acclaimed during their individual lifetimes, but who nevertheless saw their music fall into obscurity following their deaths. “I feel that I have been preparing all my life to play this music,” Juliana said of her upcoming release, noting that some of these works have been waiting over a century to be heard. “These women deserve their place in the narrative of our shared musical history, and I feel both honored and humbled to tell their stories.”
A devoted performer-scholar, Juliana holds degrees from the New England Conservatory, Ball State University, The Longy School of Music, and Oberlin Conservatory; her primary studies having been conducted under the tutelage of Yeesun Kim, Richard Aaron, Phoebe Carrai, and Catharina Meints Caldwell.
When not touring, recording, or climbing the library stacks researching her next project, Juliana can be found at home in historic Church Hill in Richmond, VA, where she enjoys gardening (with some success), hunting for vintage vinyl, and binge-watching reruns of The French Chef with her two rescue greyhounds, Rain and Ceci.
Alex Hassan has been in total immersion 1920s/30s Tin Pan Alley Popular Piano Styles therapy for over 40 years. A pupil of a pupil of a pupil of a pupil of Franz Liszt (well…it SOUNDS impressive?!), he has been a torchbearer for the melodies of between-the-wars Broadway and Hollywood (and European equivalents), devoting himself more specifically to collecting and resurrecting the great “late Romantic with a beat” popular songs that really never had a chance.
His archival collection of [mostly] popular piano solo and vocal sheet music numbers around 50,000 titles, entirely 1920s/30s. It is a tribute to those heady musical times that there is still so much left to find.
Alex has performed internationally at such venues as England’s Aldeburgh Festival, Husum (2007 & 2015–“Piano Rarities Festival”), Washington DC’s Kennedy Center, the Coolidge Auditorium (Library of Congress), various Manhattan/Baltimore/Washington night spots, and national ragtime festivals. He has recorded prolifically for England’s SHELLWOOD PRODUCTIONS, Los Angeleno label OPERETTA ARCHIVES, and Pennsylvania’s STOMP OFF, and has produced/annotated several reissues of the virtuoso popular pianists of the 78RPM period, for both Shellwood and the Pittsburgh company, RIVERMONT (for which he has also recorded, along with two brilliant singing friends).
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