Music for Peace: Beethoven Solo Piano Recital

Saturday, October 18, 2014, 7:30 pm

Harvard-Epworth Methodist Church • 1555 Massachusetts Ave • near Harvard Law School • Cambridge

Kicking off the 2014-15 Music for Peace concert series, pianist Victor Rosenbaum, in his only Boston area solo recital this season, will present an All-Beethoven Recital, including the "Pathétique" and "Waldstein" sonatas; the Sonata in A-flat Major, Opus 26; and Six Bagatelles, Opus 126.

Benefits Massachusetts Peace Action Education Fund; part of the Music for Peace Series. Tickets $25 in advance for Mass. Peace Action members, $35 for non-members, $10 for students, $35 at the door. Series of 3 concerts: member $60, non-member $85, student $25. Write check to "Massachusetts Peace Action Education Fund" and mail to 11 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 or purchase online.

The audience is invited to join the musicians and Peace Action members at a reception after the concert.

Victor Rosenbaum, pianist

"At a time when the worst elements of humanity -- religious and territorial hostilities, cruelty and barbarism -- seem to be in full display across the globe, it is worth being reminded that humanity has a higher and more noble side. Music celebrates that higher and more noble side and can elevate and inspire the human spirit. The concerts in the Music for Peace series give us a chance to commune with our higher aspirations and, at the same time, to support efforts to build a more just and peaceful world. I hope you will join us for the 2014-15 season."                          -- Victor Rosenbaum

American pianist Victor Rosenbaum has concertized widely as soloist and chamber music performer in the United States, Europe, Asia, Israel, and Russia in such prestigious halls as Tully Hall in New York and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia.  He has collaborated with such artists as Leonard Rose, Paul Katz, Arnold Steinhardt, Robert Mann, Joseph Silverstein, Malcolm Lowe, and the Brentano, Borromeo, and Cleveland String Quartets.  Festival appearances have included Tanglewood, the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, Kfar Blum and Tel Hai (in Israel), Yellow Barn, Kneisel Hall (Blue Hill), Musicorda, Masters de Pontlevoy (France), the Heifetz Institute, the International Keyboard Institute and Festival in New York, the International Music Seminar in Vienna, and the Bowdoin International Music Festival.  Concert appearances have brought him to Chicago, Minneapolis, Tokyo, Beijing, St. Petersburg (Russia), Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, New York and Boston, among others.

A student of Elizabeth Brock and Martin Marks in his hometown of Indianapolis, Rosenbaum later studied with Rosina Lhevinne, at the Aspen Festival, and with Leonard Shure, while earning degrees at Brandeis and Princeton Universities.   Rosenbaum serves on the faculty of the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he formerly chaired the piano and chamber music departments, and the Mannes College of Music in New York.  He has been Visiting Professor of Piano at the Eastman School of Music, a guest teacher at Juilliard, and presents lectures, workshops, and master classes for teachers’ groups and schools both in the U. S. and abroad, including London’s Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, and Guildhall School, the conservatories of St. Petersburg and Moscow, Beijing Central Conservatory, the Toho School in Tokyo and other institutions such as the Menuhin School, and the Jerusalem Music Center.  Rosenbaum was Director and President of the Longy School of Music from 1985-2001.

His highly praised recording of Schubert is on Bridge Records and the release of the last three Beethoven sonatas on the same label was named by American Record Guide critic Alan Becker as one of the top ten classical recordings of 2005.  Two discs on the Fleur de Son label feature music of Schubert and  Mozart.

Rosenbaum is Music Director of the Music for Peace Concert Series.

United for Justice with Peace is a coalition of peace and justice organizations and community peace groups in the Greater Boston region. The UJP Coalition, formed after September 11th, seeks global peace through social and economic justice.