Peter Orth: Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Ravel

We welcome renowned pianist Peter Orth for a benefit concert Friday, April 24, at 7 p.m. Orth will be performing Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s 5 Lieder ohne Worte, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata in C major, Op. 53 ‘Waldstein’, Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, and Frédéric Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 56 no. 2 E flat major and Ballade Op. 52 F minor.

Peter Orth began his first piano lessons at the age of six. After high school, he was admitted to The Juilliard School on full scholarship, where he was a pupil of the great Russian-American pedagogue Adele Marcus. After studies in New York, Orth was invited by Rudolf Serkin to the Marlboro Festival and subsequently to Serkin’s newly-formed Institute for Young Performing Musicians in Vermont.

In 1979, Orth won First Prize in the Naumburg International Piano Competition, which put Orth on the musical map and led to acclaimed New York debuts and engagements with major orchestras, touring coast-to-coast in recital and performing chamber music with “Music from Marlboro.” He performed with Zubin Mehta, Leonard Slatkin, Herbert Blomstedt, Karil Kondrashin, James Conlon, and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, among others.

In 1991, Orth became acquainted with the German Auryn String Quartet at the Kuhmo Festival in Finland, which led to Orth’s moving to Germany and developing a close artistic relationship with the quartet.

“Peter Orth is one of the great pianists of our time,” the quartet’s first violinist Matthais Lingenfeld, recently wrote. “He combines the long tradition of European and American musicians with his own personal style, which is characterized by clarity, expressivity and absolute sincerity.”

This is a benefit concert to support BMC Music School Scholarships. This year 43% of students received financial aid. Additional gifts are welcome.