Phillip Glass: A Survey of Keyboard Works Part 2

Pianist Mikael Darmanie has performed throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa, Russia, and the Caribbean in appearances at The Weill Institute at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Rachmaninov Hall at The Moscow Conservatory, The Bang on a Can Marathon, Close Encounters With Music in the Berkshires, The Cape Cod Symphony, Portland Bach Virtuosi, Mainly Mozart Festival, The Rising Star Piano Series in Southampton, Royal Northern College of Music, and The Emerald City Music Festival.

Mikael is the keyboardist and DJ, and a composer and arranger for the band Warp Trio as, described as “A talented group that exemplifies the genre-obliterating direction of contemporary classical music” (Columbia Free Times). The Trio has performed throughout the world in genres ranging from jazz to hip-hop, rock, contemporary classical, bluegrass, fusion, and electronic dance music, most recently in Spain at the International Experimental Music Meeting, and at the Marché des Arts du Spectacle d'Abidjan in the Ivory Coast.

He is a strong advocate for the music being created today and is a frequent performer in New York City's new music scene in places such as Times Square, National Sawdust, Roulette, Le Poisson Rouge, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Natural History Museum, Trinity Wall Street, Joe's Pub, and The Cell Theatre. Mikael also has recently conducted new music groups such as Contemporaneous and Stony Brook University's Contemporary Chamber Players.

He is currently finishing his Doctorate at Stony Brook University under the mentorship of Gilbert Kalish. Other primary teachers have included Awadagin Pratt, Ray Anderson in Jazz,  Arthur Haas on the Harpsichord, and Timothy Long in Conducting.

Noted for his “riveting, emotional complexity,” (Washington Times) award-winning pianist Thomas Hunter was formerly the Concerts and Production Manager at The Phillips Collection. Prior to joining the Phillips, he completed his Doctor of Musical Arts in Collaborative Piano at the University of Maryland where he studied with Professor Rita Sloan. His dissertation examined the impact folk and indigenous music had on western classical music. Before beginning his doctoral studies, Thomas completed the Artist Diploma at the Royal College of Music, London where he was named the Somers-Mountfort Scholar and studied with Ian Jones. 

Thomas has performed across the USA, as well as in the UK, Italy, Germany, Japan, and Serbia, at venues and series including Steinway Hall (London), Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall, the Bath Recital Artists’ Trust, the Miami Summer Music Festival, Music Academy International in Trentino, Italy, the Columbia Festival for the Arts, and he presented a lecture-recital at the World Piano Conference in Novi Sad, Serbia.

While maintaining a great passion for the classics, Thomas is equally at home with new works in various genres. He has performed premieres of in multiple US states and abroad, working with composers such as Evan Meier, Dorian Wallace, William Kenlon, Geoff Sheil, and Tomek Regulski, among others. Recently, he has also enjoyed performing in the popular and folk genres, arranging music for unique ensembles, and collaborating with innovative ensembles such as invoke, Boss Company, and the Trifilio Tango Trio.

A frequent recipient of awards, scholarships and fellowships, he won first prize in the Sevag and Nairi Balian Concerto Competition in Siena, Italy, second place in the Rising Star Emerging Artist Competition, held in Columbia, Maryland, USA. He received the Helen Mack Memorial Scholarship at the Aspen Music Festival and School, and was awarded the Charles F. Bruny Fellowship at the Garth Newel Music Center.

Jenny Lin, a Steinway Artist, has built an international reputation distinguished by inventive collaborations with a breadth of artists, and has performed widely with renowned orchestras and symphonies at the world’s most notable concert halls.

Lin has a close affinity with Philip Glass, whose Etudes she performs globally, and which inspired her to embark on a commissioning initiative, The Etudes Project. She is the featured pianist in Elliot Goldenthal’s original motion picture score for Julie Taymor’s film, The Glorias, and the central figure in Cooking for Jenny by Felix Cabez for Elemental Films, a musical documentary portraying her journey to Spain, among other media appearances such as CBS Sunday Morning, NPR’s Performance Today.

Her discography numbers more than 50 recordings, ranging from the classic piano canon to modern milestones to Broadway songs. Her passion for education led her to create “Melody’s Mostly Musical Day,” a musical picture book for children told in classical piano pieces, which she developed into a multimedia concert that has toured the continent.

Lin holds a bachelor’s degree in German Literature from The Johns Hopkins University and studied music at the Hochschule für Musik, and at the Peabody Conservatory.  Lin served as the Executive Director of the Manchester Music Festival from 2023-2024, overseeing its 50th Anniversary Season. She is currently the Director of Music for The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC.

Maki Namekawa is a leading figure among today’s pianists, bringing to audiences’ attention contemporary music by international composers. As a soloist and a chamber musician equally at home in classical and repertoire of our time, she performs regularly at international venues such as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center New York, Musikverein Vienna, Barbican Center and Cadogan Hall London, Citè de la musique Paris, Philharmonie de Paris, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, BOZAR Bruxelles, Suntory Hall and Sumida Toriphony Hall Tokyo, Salzburg Festival, Ars Electronica Festival, Musik-Biennale Berlin, Rheingau Musik Festival and Piano-Festival Ruhr.

Maki Namekawa records and performs frequently for major radio networks in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, France and USA. Orchestra engagements include Royal Concertgebouw Orkest Amsterdam, Münchner Philharmoniker, Bamberger Symphoniker, Dresdner Philharmonie, Bruckner Orchester Linz, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Filharmonie Brno, American Composers Orchestra, and Seattle Symphony.

In 2013, she performed the world premiere of the entire cycle of Philip Glass’ 20 etudes for piano solo at Perth International Arts Festival under the participation of Glass himself, followed by concerts around the world in the US, Mexico, Brazil, Ireland, Scotland, Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Slovakia, Poland, Germany and Japan. A double-CD of the complete Glass etudes has been released in 2014 by Orange Mountain Music, reaching number 1 of the iTunes Classic charts and receiving high praise in the categories “Performance” and “Recording” by BBC Music Magazine. In September 2017 Maki Namekawa presented the whole cycle of Glass etudes for the first time in Austria at the Ars Electronica Festival as a project „Pianographique“ with real time visualization by Cori O‘Lan.

In September 2018, Maki Namekawa released the piano version of Philip Glass’ soundtrack “MISHIMA – A Life in Four Chapters” that depicts the life and death of the japanese writer and political activist Yukio Mishima. The arrangement was especially crafted for her by Glass’ longterm musical director Michael Riesman and features her crystal-clear technique. The recording was awarded the prestigious “Pasticcio Prize” by ORF – Austrian National Radio Broadcast. In June 2019, her another recording Isang Yun | Sunrise Falling was awarded Pasticcio Prize again.

In 2019 Philip Glass composed his first Piano Sonata especially for Maki Namekawa. She premiered the Sonata on July 4th, 2019 at Piano-Festival Ruhr in Germany in the presence of the composer. This Piano Sonata was commissioned by the Piano-Festival Ruhr, the Philharmonie de Paris and the Ars Electronica Festival.

Together with her husband, the conductor Dennis Russell Davies, Maki Namekawa formed a piano duo in 2003 which regularly performs in leading venues in Europe and North America including the Piano Festival Ruhr, the Radialsystem in Berlin, the Salzburg Festival, the Ars Electronica Festival, the Lincoln Center Festival, the Morgan Library and “Roulette” in New York City, the Philips Collection in Washington, D.C., and the Other Minds Festival in California. Major works written for the Namekawa-Davies Duo include Philip Glass’ “Four Movements for Two Pianos”, “Chen Yi’s “China West Suite”, and Glass’ “Two Movements for Four Pianos“ (with Katia and Marielle Labèque) all commissioned by the Piano Festival Ruhr. In July 2017, Maki Namekawa, Dennis Russell Davies and Philip Glass received the Piano Festival Ruhr Award. In 2019 japanese composer Joe Hisaishi composed for the Namekawa-Davies Duo a work for 2 pianos and chamber orchestra “Variation 57”, premiered in Tokyo under the baton of the composer.

Maki Namekawa studied piano at Kunitachi Conservatory in Tokyo with Mikio Ikezawa and Henriette Puig-Roget. In 1994 she won the Leonid Kreutzer Prize. In 1995 she continued her studies with Werner Genuit and Kaya Han at Musikhochschule Karlsruhe, where she completed her diploma as a soloist with special distinction. She went on to perfect her artistry in Classical-Romantic repertoire with Edith Picht-Axenfeld, in contemporary music with Pierre-Laurent Aimard at Musikhochschule Köln, György Kurtág, Stefan Litwin and Florent Boffard.

Daniel Pesca has been hailed as “the perfect composer-virtuoso pianist” (All about the Arts) and “equally talented as pianist, composer and advocate of his peers’ works” (Fanfare). The common theme in Daniel’s myriad activities is his passion for collaboration. His partnerships with a variety of ensembles, individual musicians, and fellow composers have cultivated a prolific body of work. 

Among Daniel’s most recent compositions are Walk with me, my joy for Constellations Chamber Concerts in Washington, D.C., and New Examples of Confusion for the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition at University of Chicago. Other recent works have been commissioned with support from national granting organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts and New Music USA, for ensembles such as the American Wild Ensemble and the Oberlin Contemporary Ensemble, and for artists such as guitarist Dieter Hennings, tenor Zach Finkelstein and flutist Sarah Frisof. His music has been heard at festivals and venues across the United States and in Europe. 

As pianist, Daniel has premiered over 150 works, is a founding member of the Grossman Ensemble and co-director of the Zohn Collective, appears on a dozen commercial recordings (including a solo album, Promontory), and has performed as soloist with orchestras in works by Messiaen, Bernstein, Berg, Carter, and others. 

Daniel is currently assistant professor of composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. He was on faculty at University of Maryland, Baltimore County from 2019 to 2023, and prior to that taught at University of Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University, Ithaca College, and Syracuse University. He holds degrees in composition and piano from Eastman and University of Michigan.