May 25th: Monique Copper's Piano & Multimedia Recital:

PROGRAM

Modest Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition (1874)

Wassily Kandinsky 1928 mise-en-scene for the Friedrichtheater, Dessau. Willem Wilmink poems commissioned for Monique Copper (1990)

The Monique Copper multimedia concert was an excellent combination of music images and text. Mussorgsky^"s music fit the images perfectly. Monique^"s playing style of Mussorgsky^"s music was superb. The notes seem to flow to the images and make the still pictures come to life. The addition of the text moved through the music with complete accuracy and purpose. Giving you the sense of the music and pictures that were about to come. The returning theme that came after each small piece of text connected the piece. The stately theme seemed to embody the whole concert. The harmonic language of Mussorgsky^"s fit the abstract images.

The whole experience set a mod of being taken on a journey. A journey in which you were glad to go on. This experience was well done and a joy to be a part of. (Shawn Harper Tarrant)

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Monique Copper direct from Holland presented a beautiful concert of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" with slide illustrations and poetic commentary. Monique's piano playing was just charming. Her interpertation of this well known piece was very moving and technically perfect. During her performance on Monday, May 25th, 1999 at 7:00pm Monique combined a slide show behind her of illustartions by Wassilly Kandinsky, as well as her reciting poetry by author Willem Wilmink. Wilmink wrote a story concerning the different paintings that Mussorgsky wrote about while walking through the exhibition. Usually the poetry was recited during the movements. But sometimes, Monique would say the poetry while playing a section of the piece. This added an intense feeling between the music and the poetry. The art work shown on a huge overhead screen was very moving and beautiful. But it really did not make much sense with the other two events that were happening. But, overall the concert was a huge success. Everybody who attended the concert really enjoyed the originality of what was shown by Moniuqe Copper. A beautiful way of ending the concert was an encore of Monique playing two Debussy preludes after she recieved four curtain calls. The concert went off without a hitch! I really feel it was the most entertaining guest concert of the 1999 Composer's Seminar. (Michael Deall)

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