Taka Kigawa returns for concert on Summer Music Festival stage

Monday, June 26, 2017
Pianist Taka Kigawa will be the featured performer as the Greencastle Summer Music Festival continues on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in Gobin Memorial United Methodist Church.
Courtesy photo

The Greencastle Summer Music Festival continues on Wednesday, June 28 at 7:30 p.m. in Gobin Memorial United Methodist Church with a free performance by Taka Kigawa, a renowned pianist who is also a frequent guest at the Greencastle Summer Music Festival (GSMF).

Since 2013, Taka has performed at GSMF every summer, and this concert will mark his fifth appearance.

For Wednesday’s concert, Kigawa will perform one of the 20th-century piano masterworks — and Taka’s specialty — Oliver Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux (excerpts). In addition to this specialty, Kigawa will play piano pieces by John Luther Adams, today’s leading American composer and the 2014 Pulitzer Prize awardee, with whom Kigawa was worked. In addition, he will perform Harrison Birtwistle’s “Lied” for cello and piano, with Eric Edberg, the festival’s founder and artistic director.

“When I saw Taka yesterday and said ‘welcome to your second home,’ he said, ‘maybe this is my first home,’” Edberg, a DePauw music professor said. “He truly has become part of the community and we are thrilled to have him back -- now even more because he’s become such a good friend than because he’s such an extraordinary musician who is internationally renowned.”

Kigawa has steadily built his reputation as one of today’s most compelling young artists, renowned as much for his superb musicianship as for his courageous programming. The New York Times described him as “A phenomenon. There’s no denying that he’s something special.”

Since winning first prize in the 1990 Japan Music Foundation Competition in Tokyo, and the 1998 Diploma Prize at Concurs International Maria Canals De Barcelona in Spain, he has performed extensively as a recitalist, a member of major chamber music ensembles, and soloist with orchestra in many prestigious venues worldwide, including Weil Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Severance Hall in Cleveland, Cité de la Musique and Salle Gaveau in Paris, and Plau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona.

Kigawa has collaborated closely with such renowned musicians as Pierre Boulez, Unsuk Chin, Myung-Whun Chung and Jonathan Nott.

The Greencastle Summer Music Festival is a free weekly summer concert series featuring “friends making music for friends.” The series is supported by individuals and businesses, including the Inn at DePauw and the Putnam County Community Foundation.

For more information on the series, including the 2017 season schedule, visit www.greencastlesummermusic.org.

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