Ian Hobson — Sound Impressions: The Piano Music of Debussy & Ravel

PROGRAM

Ravel  Menuet Antique
Debussy  Ballade
Le Plus que Lente
Epigraphes Antiques
Ravel  Pavane pour une Enfante Défunte
Prélude
Debussy  Le Petit Nègre
Ravel  Sonatine
Debussy  Children’s Corner

The immensely versatile and renowned pianist Ian Hobson, whose playing has been described by Gramophone as “intensely alive to expressive nuance, textural clarity and elastic shaping,” will perform Sound Impressions: The Piano Music of Debussy and Ravel, a six-recital cycle of the complete solo piano works of the two composers, at SubCulture. The series will take place over the course of six months, from November 2017 to April 2018.

Mr. Hobson’s recitals will explore Debussy’s revolutionary quest to reach beyond traditional harmonic means to portray people and nature in an ambiguous yet still immediate reality; as well as Ravel’s brilliant, sometimes darkly-menacing solo piano works which tease the imagination with skillfully wrought intimations of spooky fairy tales, faraway places, and Gothic fantasies.

Pianist and conductor Ian Hobson—called “powerful and persuasive” by The New York Times—is recognized internationally for his command of an extraordinarily comprehensive repertoire, his consummate performances of the Romantic masters, his deft and idiomatic readings of neglected piano music old and new, and his assured conducting from both the piano and the podium.

In addition to being a celebrated performer, Mr. Hobson is a dedicated scholar and educator who has pioneered renewed interest in the music of such lesser known masters as Ignaz Moscheles and Johann Hummel. He has also been an effective advocate of works written expressly for him by a number of today’s noted composers, including Benjamin Lees, John Gardner, David Liptak, Alan Ridout, and Yehudi Wyner.