Americana 250-An American Piano Recital

Details

Junghoon Park full profile / Solo Piano / 1 musician

Full program notes

Solo Piano Recital Program

John Smith / Francis Scott Key
The Star-Spangled Banner
arr. Junghoon Park

Vladimir Horowitz
The Stars and Stripes Forever
Carmen Variations

Art Tatum
Tea for Two
Tiger Rag

Mark Maarder
Etude No. 2, “Montmorency,” in C Minor

Amy Beach
Hermit Thrush at Eve, Op. 92, No. 1

Samuel Barber
Piano Sonata in E-flat Minor, Op. 26

Intermission

Leonard Bernstein
West Side Story
arr. Natalie Tenenbaum / Junghoon Park

George Gershwin
Liza
arr. Earl Wild

Fascinatin’ Rhythm

The Man I Love

Embraceable You

Summertime, from Porgy and Bess

I Loves You, Porgy, from Porgy and Bess
arr. Bill Evans

Rhapsody in Blue
arr. Junghoon Park

Historical context

Tonight’s program traces several strands of the American piano tradition and the ways they have influenced one another. It begins with concert music shaped by the European classical tradition, but quickly moves into distinctly American voices, including Amy Beach and Samuel Barber, whose music helped define an American concert style in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Jazz and popular music are equally important to the program. Art Tatum transformed popular songs such as Tea for Two and Tiger Rag through extraordinary virtuosity, harmonic imagination, and improvisatory freedom. George Gershwin brought jazz, popular song, Broadway, and classical concert music together in a way that became central to American musical identity, especially in works such as Rhapsody in Blue and music from Porgy and Bess. Leonard Bernstein continued that conversation, combining classical technique with jazz, Broadway, and the rhythms of urban American life.

The program also includes virtuoso arrangements associated with Vladimir Horowitz and a work by living American composer Mark Maarder. Taken together, the recital reflects a musical lineage in which classical music, jazz, popular song, and theater continually borrow from and reshape one another.