Holiday Traditions with Jeffrey Biegel, piano

Virtuosic performer, Jeffrey Biegel, returns to the Series for the holiday season. In 1985, Leonard Bernstein said of the pianist: “He is a splendid musician and a brilliant performer.”  Those comments together with numerous first place competition prizes helped launch a prolific and varied career as a soloist, composer, arranger and chamber musician. Earlier this year, Mr. Biegel was soloist for Kenneth Fuchs’s Grammy award winning “Piano Concerto “Spiritualist with the London Symphony Orchestra.

Chosen as the first pianist to record for the Steinway & Sons label, his performance will feature Bach, Mozart and Chopin along with selections from his CD, “A Steinway Christmas” which reached No. 1 on the Classical Billboard charts.

Program:

Bach: Toccata in d minor

Mozart: Sonata In B-flat Major, K. 333

Chopin: Waltz In c-sharp minor, Opus 64, no. 2

Chopin: Polonaise in A-flat Major, Opus 53

Percy Grainger: Sussex Mummers Christmas Carol

Traditional , arr. Carolyne Taylor: Ding Dong, Merrily on High (to Bach’s ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’)

Traditional, arr. Carolyne Taylor: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel (to Chopin’s ‘Revolutionary’ Etude In c minor)

Franz Gruber, arr. Carolyne Taylor: Silent Night (to Debussy’s ‘’Clair de Lune’)

Mel Torme, arr. Biegel: The Christmas Song (“Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire”)

Ann Hampton Callaway, arr. Biegel: Christmas Lullaby

David Foster, arr. Biegel: Grown Up Christmas List

Traditional, arr. Biegel: Auld Lang Syne