May Phang to appear in concert Wednesday night

Monday, June 21, 2021
May Phang, Eric Edberg next up on the Greencastle Summer Music Festival concert series.

The Greencastle Summer Music Festival continues its series of Wednesday evening concerts this week with virtuoso pianist and DePauw School of Music Professor of Music May Phang performing in the “Kissinger Family Concert.”

The 7:30 p.m. concert is presented in honor of Joanne Kissinger, who with her family began the festival’s endowment at the Putnam County Community Foundation in memory of her late husband Paul.

There’s no admission charge for the 75-minute program in Gobin Church.

The concert will open with a sonata by Chopin, for which Phang will be joined by the festival’s founding artistic director, cellist Eric Edberg. Phang will then play solo pieces, including the short “After Chopin” by the contemporary composer Jarosław Gołembiowskil, a Mazurka by the romantic composer Karol Szymanowskil, and the great “Wanderer Fantasy" by Franz Schubert.

Phang explains, “I chose the Schubert to metaphorically represent our urge to seek, to travel, to escape, especially during these times.”

“We have had large and enthusiastic audiences for our first three concerts,” says Edberg, who founded the festival in 2005. “Audience members continue to wear masks and observe social distancing, as requested by Gobin, our host. We appreciate everyone’s cooperation, and it has been working out very well. What joy it is to make and listen to music in person again.”

Phang enjoys discovering and performing a wide range of repertoire from Bach and Liszt to Jean Coulthard and Zhou Long. Her debut CD, “Travels through Time,” featured works centered around Mark Twain’s satirical “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.” Her next CD, “Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations,” will be released by Centaur Records in July.

Performances as soloist and chamber musician have taken her to international venues in North America, Europe and Asia. Solo performances with orchestras include the Banff Chamber Players, Singapore Symphony, Montreal Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Phang is on the artist faculty at Interharmony International Music Festival and School in the summers and frequently adjudicates competitions and presents masterclasses nationally and internationally.

The festival will continue next week with DePauw alum Joshua Thompson, co host of “Melanated Moments in Classical Music,” the award-winning podcast from Classical Music Indy, which shines a spotlight on musical works composed by, for and about Black people. Thompson will rpesent “Our Journey, Ourselves,” a program that celebrates the majesty and mastery of a people through dance, song, spoken word and composers of African descent. Audience members will hear works from Margaret Bonds, William Grant Still, Samuel Coleridge Taylor, Nina Simone, Florence Price and Duke Ellington as guest vocalist Megan Simonton and ballerina Vae Savage join Thompson for the performance.

The festival’s concerts are presented without admission charge through the generosity of individual donors (who have donated more than $11,000 toward this summer’s goal of $21,000), income from an endowment at the Putnam Community Foundation, grants from the PCCF and in-kind donations from the Inn at DePauw.

This summer’s concerts are being video recorded and are available on YouTube and Channel 3 in Greencastle. For more information, visit greencastlemusic.org.

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