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Free
Solo Spotlight: American Piano Premieres
Online Event
HOW TO WATCH ON APR. 5:
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A recital featuring premieres of solo, chamber and small ensemble works performed by NWS Piano Fellow Thomas Steigerwald.
Solo Spotlight: American Premiere Concert is an NWS BLUE project. Fellow-driven projects are sponsored in part by the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation.
NWS thanks its 2020-21 donors.
Program
Stanley Grill
(b. 1953)
Fantasy for Piano and Strings
(2020; world premiere of NWS commission)
Sophia Bernitz, Zachary Ragent, violin
Gabe Napoli, viola; Chava Appiah, cello
Eric Windmeier, bass
Stanley Grill
(b. 1953)
Aphorisms III for Solo Piano
(2020; world premiere of NWS commission)
Pascal Le Boeuf
(b. 1986)
I Am Not A Number
(2021; world premiere of NWS commission)
Amanda Harberg
(b. 1973)
Lucas's Garden
(2021; world premiere of NWS commission)
Kelsi Doolittle, clarinet
Natsuko Takashima, violin
Clare Bradford, cello
Thomas Steigerwald, piano

Prize-winning pianist and native Texan Thomas Steigerwald is a third-year Piano Fellow at the New World Symphony. A medal winner in the Wideman, New York, Dallas Chamber Symphony and San Jose International piano competitions, he holds a master's degree from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Matti Raekallio, and a bachelor's degree from Eastman School of Music under the tutelage of Douglas Humpherys.
A 2013 Music Teacher’s National Association Young Artist prize winner, Mr. Steigerwald has pursued a multifaceted career of solo performance, chamber music and orchestral piano. He made his orchestral debut at age 18, performing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the San Antonio Symphony. He performed Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge, Colorado during its 2019 summer festival. In 2019 he collaborated with violist Brett Deubner for 20 concerts in their second tour of China. Mr. Steigerwald premiered Cosme McMoon’s newly discovered piano concerto Rondo espagnol in 2018, giving performances with the Youth Orchestra of San Antonio at the Tobin Center and New World Symphony.
Representing the Eastman School of Music, Mr. Steigerwald performed Balakirev’s Islamey at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage in Washington, D.C. in 2014. He performed Martin’s Piano Quintet in the Round Top Festival’s 2016 Chamber Honors Recital. In 2015 he performed Franck’s Piano Quintet in the Eastman School’s Chamber Honors Recital. He has also performed chamber works with Ransom Wilson, Maxim Kozlov, the Delphi Trio, Christiano Rodrigues, Anton Rist and Gretchen Pusch. Conductors with whom he has performed include Michael Tilson Thomas, Gustavo Dudamel, Brad Lubman, Emmanuel Villaume, Perry So, Thomas Adès and Gerard Schwarz.
Stanley Grill, composer

Raised in the Bronx, Stanley Grill has been obsessed with music since the age of six, when his mother took him to Carnegie Hall and he was astonished and awestruck by a performance of La Mer. While that obsession first took the form of playing piano at every possible moment (when not otherwise engaged in activities typical of a kid growing up in the Bronx of the 1950’s and ‘60s), it was his music theory studies at the Manhattan School of Music that converted that obsession to writing music – and to finding his own musical voice.
He learned the craft from extraordinary musicians: among others - Robert Helps, Leon Kushner, Ursula Mamlok and Joseph Prostakoff. Stan's passion for medieval and Renaissance music has greatly influenced his writing - a contemporary expression of ageless techniques based on melody, modal harmonies, and contrapuntal, extended, interweaving lines. Two main themes permeate many of his works - music composed in an attempt to translate something about the nature of the physical world, and music composed to inspire and promote world peace.
Stan’s music has been performed the world over – from Ecuador to Poland; Toulouse to Tokyo; Brooklyn to Vienna – by such artists as Camerata Philadelphia, Camerata Arkos, Englewinds, the Pandolfis Consort, the Bronx Arts Ensemble, One World Symphony, violists Brett Deubner and Ralph Farris, and violinist Jorge Avila. Major works include three symphonies, ten string quartets, a nonet, concerti for violin, viola and cello, and numerous song cycles for voice and various instruments.
Pascal Le Boeuf, composer

Described as "sleek, new" and "hyper-fluent" by The New York Times, Pascal Le Boeuf is a Grammy-nominated composer, pianist, and electronic artist whose works range from modern improvised music to cross-breeding classical with production-based technology. He is widely recognized for his polyrhythmic approach to chamber music and hybridization of disparate idioms.
Pascal’s latest project imaginist, is a full-length album collaboration between the JACK Quartet and the Le Boeuf Brothers Quintet (co-led by Remy Le Boeuf). The nine-piece hybridized chamber ensemble was praised by The New Yorker for "clearing their own path, mixing the solid swing of the jazz tradition with hip-hop, indie rock, and the complex techniques of classical modernism". Additional recent projects include Media Control recorded by Hub New Music, Imp in Impulse recorded by Barbora Kolářová, Into the Anthropocene featuring violist Jessica Meyer and cellist Dave Eggar, Alpha recorded by cellist Nick Photinos (Eighth Blackbird) on New Amsterdam Records, Transition Behavior recorded by the Shattered Glass String Orchestra, and Empty Promise an award-winning short film in collaboration with Four/Ten Media, Goldfeather and Robby Bowen.
As a keyboardist, Pascal has played as support for D’Angelo’s Black Messiah tour and Clean Bandit’s Rather Be tour with Australian pop artist Meg Mac. He actively tours with jazz vocalist Allan Harris, Le Boeuf Brothers, the 15-piece gospel-funk band Jesus On the Mainline, and his piano trio "Pascal's Triangle" featuring bassist Linda Oh, and drummer Justin Brown.
Pascal’s most recent awards include a 2018 Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Composition, the 2017 Cortona Prize, the 2017 Lake George Music Festival Composition Competition, a 2016 FROMM Commission from Harvard University, the 2015 ASCAP Foundation Johnny Mandel Prize, and Independent Music Awards in "Jazz," "Eclectic" and "Electronica" categories. Pascal has also received commissions and grants from Lincoln Center, Chamber Music America, and New Music USA. He composed music for the 2008 Emmy Award-winning movie King Lines, and won first place in the 2008 International Songwriting Competition.
Pascal is a Harold W. Dodds Honorific Fellow and Ph.D. candidate in music composition at Princeton University.
Amanda Harberg, composer

With music described by John Corigliano as “truly beautiful.. rare in our time- in fact, in any time,” composer Amanda Harberg strives to find emotional and spiritual meaning through music. In 2021 The Philadelphia Orchestra will present the world premiere of Dr. Harberg’s Piccolo Concerto with renowned artist Erica Peel and conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin as part of their Digital Stage series. Harberg’s many commissions include those from The Philadelphia Orchestra Association, The Juilliard School and New World Symphony. Dr. Harberg's exclusive publisher is Theodore Presser Company. Awards include three NFA Newly Published Music Awards, two New Jersey State Council on the Arts fellowships, a Fulbright/Hays Fellowship, the New York Youth Symphony’s First Music prize, a New York State Council on the Arts fellowship, and Juilliard’s Peter Mennin Prize for outstanding accomplishment. Dr. Harberg currently teaches composition at Rutgers University and at the Interlochen Arts Camp.