Experience and Transformation: Music for One and Two Pianos
Jonathan Shames and Stephanie Leon Shames, pianists
The University of Virginia Department of Music presents pianists Jonathan Shames and Stephanie Leon Shames on Tuesday, September 15, at 8:00 p.m. in Old Cabell Hall. The performance is free and open to the public.
From Copland’s striking Piano Variations and Schubert’s dramatic C-minor Sonata to Janáček’s intensely expressive 1.X.1905, the program explores music of transformation across very different sound worlds. The evening culminates with Jonathan and Stephanie Leon Shames together at two pianos for Rachmaninoff’s sweeping Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos.
Program
Aaron Copland
Piano Variations (1930)
Franz Schubert
Sonata No. 19 in C minor, D. 958
Leoš Janáček
Sonata for Piano, 1.X.1905
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos, Op. 18
Jonathan Shames, pianist and conductor
Jonathan Shames has pursued a wide-ranging career as pianist, conductor, and teacher. Since 2004, he has served as Director of Orchestral Studies and Artistic Director of OU Opera at the University of Oklahoma, where he conducts opera and orchestra performances and has introduced audiences to works by composers including Lori Laitman, Luigi Nono, and Louis Andriessen.
As a pianist, Shames has performed and recorded with orchestras throughout the United States and Europe, including the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Cologne Radio Symphony, Belgrade Radio and Television Symphony, Boston Pops, and the Seattle, Indianapolis, and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestras. He was a laureate of the 1982 Moscow International Tchaikovsky Competition and shares a 2005 Grammy Award for his work on William Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience.
Shames has premiered works by Joël-François Durand, Betsy Jolas, Stephen Hartke, and Daniel Asia and has collaborated frequently with Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate. His musical training included piano studies with Theodore Lettvin and Leon Fleisher, conducting studies with Gustav Meier, and a conducting fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Festival, where he worked with Seiji Ozawa and Bernard Haitink. He studied philosophy as an undergraduate at Yale University.
Learn more about Jonathan Shames .
Stephanie Leon Shames, pianist
Pianist Stephanie Leon Shames serves on the faculty of the University of Oklahoma, where she teaches chamber music and supervises collaborative piano activities. She has performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia in solo and chamber music recitals and as concerto soloist with the Detroit and Seattle Symphonies, Wyoming Symphony, New Orleans Philharmonic, Orchestra of Chur in Switzerland, and others.
Her chamber music appearances have included the Radio France-Montpellier and MIDEM Classique Festivals, International Piano Festival at La Roque d’Anthéron, Bordeaux Festival, Saarbrücken Chamber Music Festival, and the Pine Mountain, Marrowstone, and Olympic Music Festivals. She has performed at venues including Detroit’s Orchestra Hall, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., Salle Gaveau and the Louvre Recital Hall in Paris, Victoria Concert Hall in Singapore, and London’s Royal Academy.
As an Artistic Ambassador for the USIA, Shames gave masterclasses and recitals throughout Singapore and Indonesia, in more than a dozen cities in China, and in Quebec and Nova Scotia. A Detroit native, she received degrees from the University of Michigan and studied with Theodore Lettvin, Leon Fleisher, Eugene Bossart, Charles Fisher, and Isabelle Sant’Ambrogio. She performs regularly as a piano duo with her husband, pianist-conductor Jonathan Shames.
Learn more about Stephanie Leon Shames
Old Cabell Hall is located at the south end of the University of Virginia’s Historic Lawn, directly opposite the Rotunda. For directions and parking information, please visit the Department of Music’s Directions and Parking page.