UMF Professor of Music to play works by Beethoven, Mazzoli

The University of Maine at Farmington recently announces that Professor of Music Steven Pane plans to perform Missy Mazzoli’s “Orizzonte” for solo piano electronics and Beethoven’s Sonata No 23 in F minor, Opus 57 “Appassionata.” Performances will take place in Nordica Auditorium in Merrill Hall on the UMF campus at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 4, with a repeat performance at 11:45 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 5.

The free hour-long concerts are open to the public and will feature a talk by Pane. The performance will be followed by a question and answer time.

Along with the Third and Fifth Symphony, the Appassionata (1804-5) remains one the most well-known pieces of Beethoven’s middle or heroic period. The sonata offers a dramatic emotional range as it pushes the technical limits of the instrument and the performer.

Mazzoli’s Orizzonte, (2005) for piano and electronics, consists of gently overlapping sinewaves that set the stage for a meditative and introspective piano melody. This piece was composed for Hills Not Skyscrapers, a band devoted to combining live electronics, composition and improvisation, founded by Missy Mazzoli in Amsterdam in 2004.

The sinewaves were created using SuperCollider software. Orizzonte (“horizons” in Italian) was first performed on a piano that had been left out in the rain for a year, in a dilapidated squat hidden in the heart of Amsterdam.

Pane’s career as a pianist and conductor emerges out of his life-long interest in the interdisciplinary study and performance of music. At UMF his work often involves collaborations such as “Remnants,” a series of short films by Ann Bartges, inspired by J. S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations; “Lyric Time: Chopin’s Ballades and John Keats’ Odes”with poet Kristen Case; and Celestial Emporium with poet Jeff Thompson and artist Dawn Nye.

For more information, email april.mulherin@maine.edu.