JAMES TOCCO, piano
Saturday evening, April 6, 2002, at 7:30 p.m.
Martha-Ellen Tye Recital Hall, ISU Music Hall
James Tocco's illustrious career as recitalist, orchestral soloist, and chamber music collaborator has made him a familiar figure in the musical centers of the world. As soloist, he has appeared with many of the world's greatest orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the London Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Pittsburgh Symphony. He has been featured at the festivals of Salzburg, Vienna, and Holland, as well as the Mostly Mozart Festival, Spoleto-USA, the Hollywood Bowl, Wolf Trap, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. He came to international prominence by winning First Prize in the Munich Competition in 1973. He has received wide praise for his recordings of Chopin and of American composers Bernstein, Copland, Griffes, and MacDowell. ECM Records has issued his live performance of Erwin Schulhof's Cinq Etudes de Jazz. Deutsche Harmonia Mundi has released his recording of the complete Bach-Liszt organ transcriptions and a second disc of Bach-inspired piano compositions by Franck, Liszt, and Busoni. Mr. Tocco has also appeared in solo performance at the White House, and on the CBS, NBC, and PBS television networks.
Critical reviews have been extraordinarily enthusiastic. From the New York Times: "Mr. Tocco, who has the big technique and the expansive temperament to take on such a challenge, gave a knockout performance." "A major virtuoso. This is very impressive playing." From the Washington Post: " A brilliant pianist who has imagination and daring to match his dazzling technique." From the Wiener Zeitung (Vienna): "He understands how to give his technique human dimensions. Nothing gives the impression of being contrived, mechanical or over-practiced. No doubt about it: he has poetry." From the Berliner Morgenpost (Berlin): "He showed what a true, experienced artist can accomplish with this work. He brought forth bursts of enormous force, the most delicate fingerwork and passages filled with melancholy and superbly beautiful sounds."
Mr. Tocco is artist-in-residence at the University of Cincinnati. Since 1990 he has also been Professor of Piano at the Musikhochschule in Lübeck, Germany. He is also artistic director of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
The program on April 6 at the Martha-Ellen Tye Recital Hall will include three works not previously performed for Ames Town and Gown: Sonata in C major, Op. 1,.by Brahms; Étude Fantasy (1976) by Corigliano (The composer was winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize); and Six Moments Musicaux, Op. 16, by Rachmaninoff.
Tickets to the concert will be available at the door for $20 and in advance at Rieman's Music in Ames, Big Table Books, and the Iowa State University Music Department office. Students are admitted free of charge with ID, and free student tickets are available at the same outlets.
The 2001-2002 season of Ames Town & Gown is presented with support from the Ames Commission on the Arts. This concert is presented in cooperation with the Music Department of Iowa State University.
