Location:
Recital Hall, Towson University Center for the Arts

The pieces on this program, “Evoking Space and Time,” each speak to the composer’s desire to evoke a characteristic mood, location, or moment in time, and the varying ways this can be conveyed to an audience.

Works by Debussy and Nadia Boulanger, both written in 1915, share a languid, hazy ambiguity that feels essentially French—a natural evolution of the moods evoked in the first and third movements of the darkly Romantic Franck Sonata. Four Cities, by Turkish composer and pianist Fazil Say, instead attempts to capture the feeling of locations, namely, four cities in Turkey.

Performers:
Joseph Gotoff, cello and Wan-Chi Su, piano

Tickets at https://tickets.tuboxoffice.com/eventperformances.asp?evt=180

Pianist Wan-Chi Su has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in Asia, Europe, and throughout the United States. She has played major venues including Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York, Salle Cortot in Paris, and Taiwan National Concert Hall. In her appearance with the Post-Classical Ensemble in the Washington National Cathedral, her solo playing was praised by the American Scholar, “…played with sensitivity and imagination.”

In duo with cellist Ismar Gomes, Dr. Su has toured the United States, giving concerts in Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Additionally, Dr. Su travels for the Piatigorsky Foundation, bringing music to unconventional venues, where there is typically less access to live classical concerts. Dr. Su is sought after for collaborations with venerated musicians, which have included members of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, violinist Hebert Greenberg, cellist Michael Kannen, baritone William Sharp, trumpeter Joe Burgstaller, pianists Seth Knopp and Benjamin Pasternack, and others. She has performed in masterclasses for renowned artists, including Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode, and Gil Kalish. 

Dr. Su performs a wide range of repertoire, from Baroque, Classical, Romantic, 20TH century to Contemporary. She has premiered music by prominent active composers, such as Curt Cacioppo, William Weigel, and Aaron Malone; she has also enjoyed working with celebrated composers like George Walker, Aaron J. Kernis, Ying-Chen Kao, and others. Steeped in an array of styles, Dr. Su collaborates with dancers at the Peabody Institute (both performing and arranging music) and occasionally plays the organ for local churches. A dedicated educator, Dr. Su currently serves on the piano faculty of the Park School of Baltimore and maintains a private studio.

Decorated with numerous awards, Dr. Su won first prize in the Taiwan Cultural Cup Invitational Piano Competition. On the collegiate level, she won first prize in the Taiwan National Student Music Competition in Piano. She has also been a semi-finalist in the San Jose International Piano Competition, the Art of Duo Competition, and the Liszt-Garrison Duo Competition, and a finalist in the Harrison L. Winter Piano Concerto Competition. Further, she has been invited to numerous international music festivals, including the Taos School of Music, the Beethoven Institute, both the Icicle Creek Piano Festival and the Icicle Creek Chamber Music Festival, the NTSO International Piano Program in Taiwan, and the Paris Piano Program in France.

Born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Dr. Su began piano lessons at age four. She earned a bachelor’s degree in piano, minoring in French horn, at the National Kaohsiung Normal University in Taiwan. She holds a Master of Music, a Graduate Performance Diploma, and a Doctor of Musical Arts from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, studying primarily with Seth Knopp and Benjamin Pasternack. Dr. Su currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland, with her husband and cat. In her free time, she enjoys managing her cat’s Instagram account, in addition to taking Pilates class.