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Sunday, October 6, 2024
— a “hybrid” event —
Sam Post
Piano
A (New) Musical Offering
Taking inspiration from Bach’s The Musical Offering, Sam Post will play a program of original pieces and music by Marc Chan, including his own set of 12 pieces on the “Mary Had a Little Lamb” theme and two collaborative sets of canons. He’ll tell us about the process of collaboration on these pieces, about canons, and why he and Marc love these types of pieces so much.
BIOGRAPHY
Sam Post is a versatile pianist-composer who has written for the San Francisco Symphony and Washington Performing Arts, recorded his own piano solo albums, and co-founded a chamber music ensemble dedicated to performing new works alongside lesser-known classics. 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 compositions in 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 Symphony commissioned him to turn it into a chamber symphony for their SoundBox concert series in December 2017. The Baltimore Chamber Orchestra gave the East Coast premiere in February 2022.
Sam is the only five-time prizewinner of the Fidelio International Composition Competition for piano and won two consecutive “New Rag” prizes at the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing contest in 2021 and 2022. He has received commissions from Washington Performing Arts, Levine Music, and the Palisades Virtuosi, is a five-time resident at the Avaloch Farms Music Institute, and has appeared on WETA’s “Front Row Washington” five times playing his own compositions. He has composed hundreds of pieces for solo piano, including dozens for one-hand piano. More recently he re-wrote the entire Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1 in his “Syncopated Bach” style (the Well-“Tampered” Clavier); the recording is due out in February 2025 on Acis Records.
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 currently in its sixth season as the ensemble-in-residence at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Bethesda, MD. Sam also collaborates extensively with pianists Ralitza Patcheva and Carlos Cesar Rodriguez. He is on the piano and composition faculty at Levine Music.
Find Sam on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, etc., or at sampostpiano.com.
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