Pianist presents concert at EUUC
Published 10:42 am Friday, February 29, 2008
Edmonds Unitarian Universalist Church presents church choir accompanist and Cascade Symphony pianist Keva Vaughan-McMorrow at 8 p.m. Friday, April 23 in a musical program illustrating the birth of the piano and its place in history.
The piano to be featured is the church’s 7-foot Mason &Hamlin, played as a solo and chamber music instrument. This instrument was rebuilt by Vaughan-McMorrow’s husband, Ed McMorrow, of Lighthammer Pianos, who was the piano technician to the Seattle Symphony for more than a decade.
In a program entitled “Grand Music of History,” Vaughan-McMorrow will open by playing the harpsichord to illustrate the sound which preceded the modern piano.
She will explain how harpsichords in Europe began to be viewed as instruments of the “decadent bourgeois,” and the sound was considered so coldly unemotional that some of the best instruments were actually burned up during the years of the French Revolution.
With the advent of the industrial age, larger scale production of the new iron-framed pianos was possible, and the new “singing tone” of the modern piano began to achieve popularity as the middle-class instrument.
Works by Couperin, Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, and Gluck will illustrate this transition. To end the first half of the program, Vaughan-McMorrow will feature the family style of entertainment with piano four-hand, violin and piano, two pianos, and piano left-hand.
After intermission, solo piano compositions will be heard in the works of Chopin, Granados and Debussy, who wrote for the piano at the height of its popularity. Finally, some new compositions by Vaughan-McMorrow will be premiered with flautist Kristina Gillis and soprano Mary Jo DuGaw, as well as the EUUC choir.
Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for students 18 and under, available in advance by calling April Cook at 425-712-3463, e-mailing acook@cmc.net, subject “Concert Tickets,” or at the door. Proceeds benefit the EUUC Music Program. Edmonds Unitarian Universalist Church is located at 8109 224th St. in Edmonds.
