GREAT BARRINGTON — Israeli pianist Ran Dank will appear with Korean-American pianist Soyeon Kate Lee in a recital presented by Clarion Concerts at Saint James Place, Sunday, May 1, at 3 p.m. Flutist Eugenia Zukerman will join Dank and Lee on a piece for two pianos and flute by Mozart, and the program includes a piece for four hands, “Tango,” by Marc-Andre Hamelin, which Dank and Lee premiered at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. Sunday’s program will also include works by Liszt, Ravel, and Gershwin.
When Soyeon Kate Lee performed at the Mahaiwe in December 2015, I wrote, “Soyeon Kate Lee’s delivery of Scriabin’s Op. 28 is so manifestly heartfelt that it would be difficult to say whether she owns the piece or is possessed by it.” Lee’s touch truly is exquisite, and if you want to hear it for yourself, then half a minute of this performance of Louis Spohr’s “Die Rose” will convince you that she wields magic at the keyboard.
Formerly a member of the piano faculty at the Juilliard School, Lee is now an award-winning Associate Professor of Music in Piano at the Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music.
There are no more music prizes for Ran Dank to win in his home country. He has won every major music prize in Israel. When you hear him play Chopin, you’d swear it was Dank’s life specialty. But if you then hear him play Prokofiev, the Chopin will seem more like an exercise.
The fact is, Dank specializes in versatility. His Rachmaninoff is as convincing as his Boulez, and his Boulez is just one example of how both he and Lee have championed contemporary music over the years. The two have performed — and in some cases premiered — works by such contemporary composers as Kevin Puts, Tobias Picker, Frederic Rzewski, and William Bolcom.
Dank’s performance of Rzewski’s “The People United Will Never Be Defeated!” at the University of Chicago was selected as one of the top ten performances of 2017 by the Chicago Classical Review.
Dank joined the roster of Young Concert Artists as a winner of the 2009 International Auditions and has performed solo and with orchestra at so many prominent venues in Europe, Russia, Australia, and the U.S. that I can’t possibly list them all here, nor even a fraction of Lee’s performance credits. (Read their bios here, and you’ll see what I mean.)
Dank and Lee established a series of concerts, Music by the Glass, held in an art gallery in the SoHo neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. They now live in Cincinnati with their two adorable children, Noah and Ella.
Tickets to Sunday’s performance can be purchased here.
