Welcome to our 2023-24
Distinguished Artist Series!
Amaryn Olmeda: October 25, 2023 at 7:30 p.m.
Jeffrey Kahane and Gabriel Kahane: March 9, 2024 at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets for Amaryn Olmeda Tickets for Kahanes Series Passes
From the Director
Dear Grace Goudy Distinguished Artists Series patrons, and larger Willamette Valley Residents,
It gives me great joy to highlight the wonderful artists we are presenting this coming 2023-2024 season!
Our opening concert on Wednesday, October the 25th at 7:30 p.m. will be a very special occasion. The word prodigy is quite often overused, in many endeavors, not simply in musical performance. The Goudy series has in fact brought a young prodigy to Willamette for a solo recital, when it invited a 16 year-old pianist Yuja Wang to the campus. Now considered one of the world’s greatest musicians, it is a lovely and circular irony that at her recent residency with master classes at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, an extraordinary young violinist, Amaryn Olmeda, was invited to perform the Janacek Violin Sonata with her!
Amaryn Olmeda is an amazing young musician, already performing with mature artists like pianist Lara Downes, and major orchestras: the Houston Symphony, Chicago Sinfonietta, the Des Moines Symphony, and Springfield Symphony, just this season. I invite you to listen to her performance of the challenging and brilliant Ravel “Tzigane”, which will be featured on this program.
Other highlights of the concert will include the Theresa Von Paradis “Sicilienne”, Jesse Montgomery’s “Peace”, the vastly underplayed Stravinsky “Suite Italienne” and the incomparable Cesar Franck Sonata for Violin. It will be my great pleasure and honor to collaborate with her for this recital. In addition, she will host a “give and take” session for our music majors and the general public at the weekly music convocation Tuesday the 24th at 11: 30 a.m.
Our Spring 2024 program offers a unique and fabulous musical adventure, a father and son combination almost unique in recent music history. On Saturday night March 9th the series will present pianist Jeffrey Kahane, and his son, creative director of the Oregon Symphony, Gabriel Kahane. Jeffrey’s last appearance on the series offered a performance of the J.S. Bach Goldberg Variations few will forget. He is a pianist of superlative depth - a major competition winner, and conductor, whose artistry is incomparable. Gabriel’s talents are even more varied, with collaborations ranging from performances with baritone Thomas Quasthoff, to his own compositions. His writing is impossible to categorize, from his groundbreaking “Craigslistlieder” to his recent compositions for the Oregon Symphony. After his many seasons at the Oregon Bach festival, with his son now living in Portland and inspiring the local musical community, these are truly some of Oregon’s most beloved artists. Details of the program, in addition to the time and the location of their respective master classes, will be available soon! We can be sure that their offerings will be diverse and unique with the promise of great surprises, and above all, great fun!
Our concerts are held in the Hudson Concert Hall in the Rogers Music Center, Willamette University.
I look forward to seeing you at these exciting concerts.
Jean-David Coen
Artistic Director
Willamette University Music Department
Rogers Music Center
503-370-6255
music-info@willamette.edu