Faculty Recital: Gregory Parker, Baritone & Anna Billias, Piano "Musical Innovators: Prokofiev and Shostakovich"

Faculty Recital: Gregory Parker, Baritone & Anna Billias, Piano

Musical Innovators: Prokofiev and Shostakovich

Sunday, September 12, 2021 at 3 p.m.

Wilson Concert Hall

No tickets are required. All individuals, including those who are fully vaccinated,
are expected to wear masks in public indoor spaces on W&L campus.

Performance will also be streamed. https://livestream.com/wlu

Sergei Prokofiev was one of many composers looking to shed the trappings of romanticism and open new vistas in musical expression. Likewise, Dmitri Shostakovich, 15 years younger than Prokofiev, combined an eclectic array of compositional techniques into his works. In this recital, Anna Billias and Gregory Parker will present works by these two innovative composers. Selections include Prokofiev’s Three Romances After Pushkin, with texts that include the proletarian subjects that were more common in the composer’s songs after his return to the Soviet Union in 1936. Also, Dr. Billias will play his Fifth Piano Sonata, which features surprisingly light colors and a clarity not typical of Prokofiev’s overall tone. Shostakovich will be represented by his Three Fantastic Dances for piano with its grotesque and exquisite harmonies as well as a selection of preludes from his Opus 34. Also Parker and Billias will present Shostakovich’s Four Romances on Poems by Pushkin, which feature the dark themes of an oppressed artist, something he truly was at this point in his career.