Sunset Music and Arts: August, 2024

Polish pianist Tomasz Kamieniak (from the Sunset Music and Arts event page for this recital)

As is the case this month, the month of August will also see only one recital presented by Sunset Music and Arts. This month’s solo violin recital will be complemented next month by a solo piano recital. The recitalist will be Polish pianist Tomasz Kamieniak.

He has prepared a program of eight selections, each by a different composer. Since he, himself, is also a composer, he has given himself one of the slots with a performances of “Potsdamer Platz. Hommage à Marlene Dietrich,” the second piece in his Opus 67 collection Drei Berliner Klavierwerken.

The only composer to appear twice on the program will be Charles-Valentin Alkan. Kamieniak will play “Aime-Moi” (love me), the first piece in the Opus 15 collection Morceaux dans le Genre pathétique. Alkan’s other “appearance” will be as the arranger of the Allegro con brio movement from Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 37 (third) piano concerto in C minor, for which Alkan also provided the cadenza. The other “arranger” on the program will be Franz Liszt, who arranged six of the songs collected in Frédéric Chopin’s Opus 74. These are generally published with German titles. Kamieniak will play three of them as follows:

• Frühling (spring)
• Das Ringlein (the ring)
• Bacchanal (merrymaking)

Other composers known for their virtuosity will include Louis Moreau Gottschalk (his Opus 31 “Souvenir de Porto Rico”), Sigismond Thalberg (the Opus 46 “Grand Caprice sur des motifs de l’Opéra la Sonnambula”), and “An American Idyl,” from Leopold Godowsky’s Triakontameron, subtitled “30 Moods and Scenes in Triple Measure.” The twentieth century will be represented by Walter Niemann with one of the movements from his Opus 119 Jura-Sommer: Kleine Impressionen.

This performance will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, August 9. For those not familiar with this concert series, it takes place at the Incarnation Episcopal Church, which is located in the Sunset at 1750 29th Avenue. Admission will be free with a suggested donation of $20 per person. [added 10/17, 8:25 a.m.:

Yesterday afternoon Sunset announced a second program for this month. The title of the program is Echoes of the Ages: A Journey Through Classical Song.  The journey will be led by mezzo Michelle Alexandra Pavlova. She will be joined by MonaLisa Pomarleanu, who is also a mezzo. Their accompanist will be pianist Dwight Okamura. The program has not yet been announced, but it has been planned to include selections from all periods between the Renaissance and the late Romantic period of Johannes Brahms and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The performances will again begin at 7:30 p.m., this time on Saturday, August, 24. Venue and ticketing information are the same as in the above paragraph.]