PIANIST HENRY KRAMER IS WINNER OF JUILLIARD’S
2015 WILLIAM PETSCHEK PIANO RECITAL AWARD
Kramer Makes His Alice Tully Hall Recital Debut on Wednesday, May 6, 2015 at 8 p.m.
Program Features Works by Liszt, Kernis, Ravel, and Chopin
NEW YORK –– Pianist Henry Kramer, Juilliard alumnus and a native of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, has won Juilliard’s 2015 William Petschek Piano Recital Award and will be presented in his Alice Tully Hall recital debut on Wednesday, May 6, 2015 at 8 p.m. The program features Liszt’s Drei Stücke aus der heilige Elisabeth, S. 498b; Aaron Jay Kernis’s Morningsong and Mist (Aubade sous brume) (2011); Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit; and Chopin’s 24 Preludes, Op. 28. Mr. Kramer is currently in his second year of the doctorate program at the Yale School of Music. He holds both Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from Juilliard and an Artist Diploma from Yale School of Music. He is a winner of Astral Artists’ 2014 National Auditions.
Tickets for $20 are available at events.juilliard.edu, through CenterCharge (212) 721-6500, or at the Alice Tully Hall Box Office. Tickets are free for Juilliard students. Non-Juilliard students with valid I.D. may purchase tickets for $10, only at the Alice Tully Hall Box Office.
Past Petschek winners include Michael Brown, Frederic Chiu, Jeremy Denk, Fei-Fei Dong, Jon Kimura Parker, Orion Weiss, Joyce Yang, and Zhang Zuo.
About the Program
A doctoral student at Yale, Henry Kramer recently recorded Liszt’s Oratorio Transcriptions for Naxos, and he wrote his thesis about Liszt as a transcriber, focusing on those pieces as the source of his analysis. He writes: “I felt that Ravel (Gaspard de la Nuit) was a natural choice to follow Liszt’s Drei Stücke aus der heilige Elisabeth, S. 498b, because both composers approach the piano with orchestral sonorities in mind. The short Kernis piece, Morningsong and Mist (Aubade sous brume), functions as a prelude to the Ravel. The second half of the program features Chopin’s 24 Preludes. I see a connection between Ravel and Chopin in musical content. Although Chopin did not indicate an extra-musical inspiration for his Preludes, to me these pieces seem to be in a dreamlike state. Some are anxiety-ridden nightmares, which I see as related to the musical content of the Ravel.”
About Henry Kramer
Originally from Cape Elizabeth, Maine, pianist Henry Kramer is a budding presence on the concert stage both nationally and internationally. His performances have been lauded as “triumphant” and “thrilling” (The New York Times) and “technically effortless” (La Presse, Montreal). A winner of Astral Artists’ 2014 National Auditions, Mr. Kramer was also a top prizewinner in the 2010 National Chopin Competition, the 2011 Montreal International Music Competition, the 2012 China Shanghai International Piano Competition, and was the recipient of the Harvard Musical Association’s 2014 Arthur Foote Award. As the winner of the 2015 William Petschek Award from The Juilliard School, he will make his New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall in May.
Mr. Kramer has appeared as a soloist with the Shanghai Philharmonic, the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra in Ankara, Turkey, in Liszt’s Concerto No. 1, the Portland Symphony Orchestra in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, the Orchestre Métropolitain du Montréal in Ravel’s Concerto in G Major, and the Yale Philharmonia in Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 2. In the spring of 2012, he made his European debut in solo recital at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. His performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio, WMFT Chicago, WQXR in New York City, CBC Radio-Canada, and online at MEDICI.TV.
An engaging chamber musician, Mr. Kramer has been featured in performances at Lincoln Center, and he has participated in the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival, the La Jolla Music Society’s Summerfest, and at the Verbier Festival Academy, where he received the Tabor Foundation Prize in piano. Recently, he appeared on Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute tour, which included performances at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and New York’s Morgan Library, as well as an unprecedented appearance in Havana, Cuba, as a cultural ambassador.
Mr. Kramer holds both Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Robert McDonald and Julian Martin. He recently completed an Artist Diploma degree with Boris Berman at the Yale School of Music, where he received the Charles S. Miller Prize for the most outstanding first-year pianist. He is currently pursuing doctoral studies at the Yale School of Music.
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Henry Kramer (Photo by Janette Beckman)
PROGRAM LISTING:
Wednesday, May 6, 2015, 8 p.m., Alice Tully Hall
Henry Kramer, piano
Juilliard’s 2015 William Petschek Piano Recital Award
Franz LISZT Drei Stücke aus der heilige Elisabeth, S. 498b
Aaron Jay KERNIS Morningsong and Mist (Aubade sous brume)
Maurice RAVEL Gaspard de la nuit
Frederic CHOPIN 24 Preludes, Op. 28
Tickets for $20 are available at events.juilliard.edu, through CenterCharge (212) 721-6500, or at the Alice Tully Hall Box Office. Tickets are free for Juilliard students. Non-Juilliard students with valid I.D. may purchase tickets for $10, only at the Alice Tully Hall Box Office.
