The UPEI Department of Music Recital Series begins its 2019-2020 season on Saturday, September 14 at 7:30 pm at the Dr. Steel Recital Hall featuring its new piano professor, Magdalena von Eccher, in collaboration with clarinettist Karem J. Simon. 

The program will feature a diverse collection of chamber works for piano and clarinet. It will begin with “Five Bagatelles” by English composer Gerald Finzi. These were completed over a five-year period during World War II and are among his most famous works. Finzi aptly brings out the expressive and technical qualities of the clarinet. Following will be a performance of Brahms’ Sonata for Piano and Violin Op. 100, No. 2 (transcribed for clarinet). This is a lyrical and virtuosic work in which Brahms’ considerable craftsmanship as a composer is on full display. Francis Poulenc’s Sonata dates from 1962 and was commissioned by jazz clarinettist Benny Goodman, who, with Leonard Bernstein, gave its premier in 1963. The program’s finale will be James David’s Historias y Danzas, a composition commissioned by Dr. Simon. It is an engaging collection of short works inspired by Latino culture.

This will be Magdalena von Eccher’s premier performance at UPEI. She is recognized as one of Canada’s finest musicians. Her performances as solo pianist, with orchestra, collaborating with singers, and in chamber music are earning the highest praise from fellow musicians and are loved by audiences. Von Eccher’s musical communication is always personal, poetic, and of the highest artistic calibre. Along with her performing career, she is an enthusiastic and engaging teacher and adjudicator, having been on faculty at the University of Lethbridge Department of Music and at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music. Since 2007, von Eccher has been a favourite at the Festival of the Sound in solo performances as well as in collaboration with artists such as the festival’s director, James Campbell, Denis Brott, Cameron Crozman, Marion Newman, James Somerville, and visual artist, Alan Stein. Recipient of the prestigious Joseph-Armand Bombardier Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, von Eccher is a doctoral candidate at McGill University with Stéphane Lemelin.

Karem Simon is well known in PEI for his body of work as a clarinettist, conductor, and music educator.