New Horizons


Sponsor: Livonia Town Hall
Saturday, Feb 24, 2018 - 4:00pm
Louis Schmidt Auditorium - Clarenceville H. S.
20155 Middlebelt Road - Livonia
      Pianist;   Dr. Michael Coonrod                                  Composer:  Richard Cioffari – New Composition        

Click to see Details

PROGRAM 
Musical Piece              Composer​
L’Italiana in Algeri – Overture               Rossini
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra       Cioffari
INTERMISSION
Spartacus Ballet Suites No. 1           Khachaturian

 Richard Cioffari writes, "CONCERTO FOR PIANO AND ORCHESTRA" was commissioned in 2013 by my good friend since grade school days Dr. John W. Chekaway, although he had been encouraging me to write such a piece for many years.  Dr. Chekaway, a creditable amateur pianist himself, proposed that the work be dedicated and presented to pianist Dr. Michael Coonrod for possible performance.  It was, and, happily, Michael agreed to play it.  The search for an orchestra then led us to the Livonia Symphony, which again, happily, agreed to program its premiere performance.
“The concerto is cast in the traditional three contrasting movements and employs standard full orchestral resources.   My intent was to treat soloist and orchestra as equal partners and to write an essentially musical, as opposed to essentially virtuosic, piece.   Also, I wanted to create something that meets audience expectations (and mine, as well) of a bona fide piano concerto—a work of substantial length and content, presenting both soloist and orchestra in ways that best exploit their idiomatic capabilities, while fully utilizing the marvelous and powerful dramatic and lyric potential of this time-honored, immensely popular medium.
“Formally, like most of my music, the concerto follows recognizable general structures in all three movements.  It also is my aim to produce highly organic writing, with material continuously and logically unfolding from what comes before.   The harmonic vocabulary is quite traditional, and the lyrical element is very important to me, which I trust you can tell.  I hope you enjoy tonight’s performance.”
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Michael Coonrod has been a piano faculty member at the Interlochen Arts Academy for forty-one years.  During this time, he has developed the potential in hundreds of students and has presented annual piano recital tours devoted to music with a central concept such as all-Schubert, Schumann, Bartók, Impressionistic, Russian, and Spanish-Latin American programs.  In 1994, he presented twenty concerts of music by contemporary American composers culminating in Poland, where he performed and gave master classes at the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw and the Music Conservatory in Poznan.  In August of 2009 and June of 2011, he appeared at the Qingdao Conservatory of Music in China as soloist, and then as a chamber recitalist with his wife Jean and colleagues David and Joan Holland.  They gave several master classes for the students at the university and community.  He also has been teaching at the FaceArt school in Shanghai.  As well as serving as a faculty member at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, he is part of the artist/faculty at the Amalfi Coast Summer Music Festival in Miaori, Italy.
 
As soloist with orchestra, he performed Beethoven's Concerto No.4 with the Traverse Symphony Orchestra, Mozart's Concerto No. 14 with the Louisville String Orchestra, and Mozart’s two-piano concerto with the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra in 2010.  In the fall of 2012, he joined the Northwestern Michigan College Community Band in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.  He also has performed for the American Liszt Society, the Eastman School of Music, the Michigan Music Teachers Association conventions, and in June of 2008 at the International Viola Congress.
 
His compact disc of music by the Michigan composer ALBERT FILLMORE was released in December of 2003 as a non-profit venture to build scholarships for composition students in Michigan.  As an anthology of works for solo piano, voice, children's choir, and string orchestra with organ, this biography and recording includes six other artists from Michigan, Indiana, and Kentucky.  His most recent recording is a two-CD collection of solo piano music by Franz Schubert.
 
His primary teacher and mentor was the Dutch pianist Lucien Hut, with whom he studied at the University of Montana, graduating with honors.  He earned his Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees at The Peabody Conservatory of Music, part of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.  His principal teacher there was Konrad Wolff, biographer of Arthur Schnabel, with additional coaching from George Walker and Leon Fleisher.
 
For eighteen summers, Dr. Coonrod was resident piano artist for "Music at Maple Mount, a Summer Institute for Young Musicians."  In 1996, he was included by the Governor of Kentucky in the order of "Kentucky Colonels"  for his outstanding contribution to education.
His wife Jean is a cello teacher at Interlochen.  They have two sons--David a landscaper with two children, and Rob a singer/songwriter in Traverse City.  Their daughter Michelline is a dancer in Las Vegas; she and her husband have two sons.

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