Multi-Award Winning And World-Class Musicians Arianna Körting And Robin Giesbrecht To Perform Piano Four Hands At Hamptons “Salon Series”

The Parrish Art Museum’s Salon Series music program will continue with young multi-award winning, world-class artists Arianna Körting and Robin Giesbrecht on Friday, October 13 at 6 p.m.

“Salon Series offers a casual environment to experience and enjoy classical and contemporary music by master musicians,” said Parrish Director Terrie Sultan. “In fitting with the Museum’s mission to illuminate the creative process, Salon Series performers engage in a dialogue with the audience, talking about their approach to interpretation and program selection.”

Körting and Giesbrecht will perform well-known and challenging compositions in the second half of their program. The recital will open with solo works, beginning with Körting’s performance of the first 12 of the 24 Preludes op. 28 by Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849). The short pieces present very different moods as well as a variety of challenges. Giesbrecht will play the thrilling, virtuosic “Dante Sonata” (Aprés une lecture du Dante) by Franz Liszt (1811-1886), inspired by the composer’s reading of Dante Alighieri’s epic poem, The Divine Comedy.

The duo will connect to perform Petite Suite, for piano four hands – a type of duet in which the two players perform side-by-side on a single piano, requiring the musicians to be in tune with each other and achieve a fluency and unified touch, making their playing indistinguishable from one another – by French Impressionist Claude Debussy (1862-1918), which is described as a tonally simple work compared with Debussy’s more harmonically complex compositions during that period. Works by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) are considered among the most interesting of the genre with his best known piece being 16 Waltzes op. 39. They were intended as a tribute to the waltz, a dance style especially fashionable in Vienna where Brahms lived and worked for most of his life. The program will conclude with Allegro in A mino, “Lebensstürme” (Storms of Life) by Franz Schubert (1797-1828).

Körting was one of 18 recipients selected as a 2011 Davidson Fellow by the Davidson Institute for Talent Development, an achievement entered into the Congressional Record. Her most prestigious awards include: First Prizes in the Fifth Julia Crane International Piano Competition, the 2007 Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition, the CIPC Young Artists Competition, the David D. Dubois Piano Competition, and the Duquesne Young Artists National Piano Competition. Körting has delighted audiences at Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra; Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall and Steinway Hall in New York; National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; NPR’s From the Top; St. Cecilia’s Hall in Manila, the Beijing Music Festival and Academy; and the Fontainebleau Schools in Fontainebleau, France. A Young Steinway Artist, Körting is in the Accelerated B.M./M.M. program at The Juilliard School under the guidance of Jerome Lowenthal and Hung-Kuan Chen. She was valedictorian of her class at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Preparatory Division.  

Giesbrecht has been celebrated internationally throughout his career, beginning with winning the International Grotrian-Steinweg Competition at age seven and the NDR Arts Prize. He has performed in recitals and as a soloist with orchestras throughout Europe, North America, and Asia, including debuts with the NDR Radio Philharmonic, Southwest German Philharmonic, Hamburg Philharmonic Hall, Carnegie Hall’s Weil Recital Hall, and in 2015, a performance of his own piano concerto at Lincoln Center. He has performed at music festivals such as the Music Academy of the West, Oxford Philharmonic Piano Festival, Piano Texas, Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, and Sommerakademie Mozarteum Salzburg. Giesbrecht was awarded the Vladimir Horowitz scholarship at the Juilliard School where he received his undergraduate degree and studied with Jerome Lowenthal and Joseph Kalichstein. He is currently a student at the Yale School of Music, studying with Peter Frankl.

Tickets for Salon Series, which include Museum admission, are $25; $10 for Members. The Golden Pear Café and the Parrish will be open before and after the concerts.

The Parrish Art Museum is located at 279 Montauk Highway in Water Mill. For more information, call 631-283-2118 or visit parrishart.org.