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The Restoration Concert on Sunday, March 17, 2024, at 4:00 p.m. will feature pianist Robert Thies and violinist Kerenza Peacock. The program includes music by Debussy, the Prokofiev Sonata in F minor for Violin and Piano and the Faure Sonata in A Major for Piano and Violin. The concert is presented by the Restoration Concerts Committee of the Friends of the South Pasadena Public Library and will be held in the beautiful historic Library Community Room at 1115 El Centro St. in South Pasadena. Tickets will be available at the door for $25.
Robert Thies is an artist renowned for his consummate musicianship and poetic temperament and is “a pianist of unerring warm-toned refinement, revealing judicious glimmers of power” – Los Angeles Times. Robert Thies is an artist renowned for his consummate musicianship and poetic temperament. He first captured worldwide attention in 1995 when he won the Gold Medal at the Second International Prokofiev Competition in St. Petersburg, Russia. With this victory, Thies became the only American pianist to win a Russian piano competition since Van Cliburn’s triumph in Moscow in 1958. Robert enjoys a diverse career as an orchestral soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, and recording artist. He has already performed 40 different concerti with orchestras all over the world, including the Saint Petersburg (RUSSIA) Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia, Louisville Orchestra, and the Mexico City Philharmonic. As a Steinway Artist and frequent recitalist in the United States and abroad, Robert has developed a reputation as a “genuine” and “sincere” artist, creating delicately balanced programs and performing in a manner to draw focus to the composer rather than to himself. In 2001, under the auspices of Community Concerts, he completed a forty-city tour of the United States. In May 1999, he performed in the Hermitage Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia. Two years earlier he worked with the late Henryk Gorecki in the U.S. premiere of his Piano Sonata. Robert is highly sought after as a recital partner and collaborator in both instrumental and vocal chamber music. Offstage he is in high demand for special recording projects by contemporary composers, and he sometimes appears on soundtracks for film and television. For more information on Robert Thies’ career, visit https://www.robertthies.org/rthies_main/bio.htm
Kerenza Peacock is a musical wanderer – equally at home playing classical works by Vivaldi and Mozart as she is performing new works by young composers like Oliver Davis or letting her hair down playing fiddle with Anglo-American Bluegrass band The Coal Porters. Labels are frustratingly narrow when applied to Kerenza’s view of music. She has recorded as soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra and received 5 star reviews for her Vivaldi “Four Seasons. Her debut solo disc had been the world premiere recording of the Holbrooke Violin Concerto for the Naxos record label, praised in Gramophone Magazine for her “lithe, elegant violin-playing and her easy conquest of the virtuoso demands…” Her recording of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” was selected as Album of the Week on Classic FM, and featured on BBC Radio 3. “Dance”, her latest collaboration with Davis was recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and joined their previous CDs at the top of the charts. All received five-star reviews from the critics. Kerenza is a regular concerto soloist with several orchestras in London’s St. Martin in the Fields and has played chamber music with members of the Amadeus and Alberni Quartets. To learn more about Kerenza, visit https://www.kerenzapeacock.
The Restoration Concerts Committee, a committee of the non-profit organization, The Friends of the South Pasadena Public Library, has a goal to bring world-class music at an affordable price to the concertgoers in South Pasadena and surrounding communities. As the name suggests, net proceeds from the concerts provide for restorations, enhancements and other benefits to the South Pasadena Library and Community Room. For more information about Restoration Concerts, contact restorationconcerts@gmail.com or go to https://www.friendsofsopaslibrary.org/restoration-concerts
