Pauline Adamek
Thirty years ago, a group of gifted young pianists with a bent towards new music, gathered together to lick stamps. Led by the late pianist, scholar and Schoenberg associate Leonard Stein, they sat at his dining table affixing these stamps to pre-internet postcards to announce their brand-new concert series called Piano Spheres. They hoped it might last a whole season. Music patron Betty Freeman wrote the $2,500 check that was their budget for the entire year. Now, 30 years and a few generations later, these pianists – Gloria Cheng, Vicki Ray, Mark Robson, and the late Susan Svrček have become brilliant lights in the firmament of contemporary concert music in Los Angeles and are bringing the next generation of young pianists along with them.
To celebrate this landmark 30th anniversary season, Piano Spheres presents ‘30 for 30,’ a special initiative that will commission 30 composers to write new works for the piano, to be performed by Piano Spheres’ Core Artists: Nic Gerpe, Aron Kallay, Thomas Kotcheff and Vicki Ray, Emeritus Artist Mark Robson, Stein Resident Artist Andrés Jaramillo, and Emerging Artist Thomas Mellan. All ‘30 for 30’ composers were chosen by the performers and represent an impressive sampling of local, national and international talent including Thomas Meadowcroft, Donald Crockett, Paul Beaudoin, Paul Morovec, Veronika Krausas, William Alves, Thomas Flaherty and 23 others. Guest Artist Stephen Drury will present a solo recital featuring the complete piano sonatas of Charles Ives on the 150th anniversary of his birth. Also performing will be Emerita Artist Gloria Cheng with guest pianist Ralph van Raat in a program celebrating the 100th birthday of Pierre Boulez in association with CAP UCLA.
Piano Spheres dedicates its 2024/25 season to beloved core artist Sarah Gibson and will honor her memory with a special concert on July 14th, the anniversary of her tragic passing. Gibson’s duo HOCKET with pianist Thomas Kotcheff remains on sabbatical.
Below is a list of 2024/25 events. All concerts begin at 8PM.
Please go to www.pianospheres.org for complete descriptions:
October 22, 2024 | Thayer Hall, Colburn School
Guest Artist: Stephen Drury
Title: Charles Ives at 150
World renowned guest artist Stephen Drury will celebrate the Ives sesquicentennial with a special performance of Ives’ complete sonatas for piano, including the monumental “Concord” sonata.
November 9, 2024 | at Zipper Hall, Colburn School
Emeritus Artist: Mark Robson
Title: Spielfreude
Spielfreude”, the joy of playing, describes the sheer physical and emotive pleasure of performing. Music by Ligeti, Glass, Cowell, Messiaen, Schoenberg, Aldo Clementi, Ginastera and three 30 for 30 composers
December 9, 2024 | at Zipper Hall, Colburn School
Title: for Susan and Rick,
Pianists: Gloria Cheng, Nic Gerpe, Aron Kallay, Thomas Kotcheff, Nelson Ojeda, Vicki Ray and Mark Robson honor Piano Spheres’ founding pianist Susan Svrcek and her composer-husband Frederick Lesemann.
January 21, 2025 | at Thayer Hall, Colburn School
Leonard Stein Resident Artist: Andrés Jaramillo
Title: A Journey of Immigrants
Colombian pianist Andrés Jaramillo specializes in the music of living LatinX composers. He will explore the myriad emotions inherent in the immigrant experience through the music of his ’30 for 30’ composers.
February 18, 2025 | at Thayer Hall, Colburn School
Core Artist: Vicki Ray
Title: Brook and Meadowcroft
This concert features two new large-scale works by important international composers Taylor Brook and Thomas Meadowcroft. Both are 30 for 30 composers.
March 11, 2025 | at Thayer Hall, Colburn School
Core Artist: Nic Gerpe
Title: Islands
Piano Spheres’ newest Core Artist Nic Gerpe will present a range of colorful and evocative pieces which explore the many aspects and connotations of islands. Music by Donnacha Dennehy, Salina Fisher and Christopher Cerrone, with ’30 for 30’ pieces by Robert Pollock, José-Luis Hurtado and Paul Moravec.
March 26, 2025 | at Thayer Hall, Colburn School
Emerging Artist: Thomas Mellan
Title: Collective Hysteria: The Three Piano Sonatas of Pierre Boulez
Emerging Artist Thomas Mellon presents the complete piano sonatas of Pierre Boulez. Premieres of 30 for 30 pieces by organist/composer Rashaan Allwood, underground death metal legend Colin Marston and Ukrainian virtuoso violinist Orest Smovzh
April 15, 2025 | at Thayer Hall, Colburn School
Core Artist: Aron Kallay
Title: Love/Dream
Aron Kallay wants an update to Franz Liszt’s Liebestraum No. 3. ’30 for 30’ composers Michael Frazier, Brandon Rolle, Zanaida Robles, Daniel Allas and Marek Zebrowski use Liebestraum as a point of departure, creating new work on what it means to love, to dream.
May 30, 2025 | at The Leonard Nimoy Theater
Emerita Artist Gloria Cheng and Guest Artist Ralph van Raat
Title: Celebrating Pierre Boulez
Pianists Gloria Cheng and Ralph van Raat pay homage to Pierre Boulez’s legacy in his centennial year with music by Boulez, Cage, Feldman, Gibson, Lindburg, Stravinsky and Zappa. Produced in association with CAP UCLA.
July 14, 2025 | at Zipper Hall
Title: for Sarah
Piano Spheres’ Core and Emeritus Artists
Sarah Gibson was a brilliant pianist, composer and educator, and one of the brightest lights in our community. Along with pianist Thomas Kotcheff, she was half of the piano duo HOCKET, who joined Piano Spheres as a Core Artist in 2019. Join the Piano Spheres family as we honor her legacy on the anniversary of her passing.
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A B O U T…P I A N O…S P H E R E S:
Piano Spheres was founded in 1994 by pianist, scholar and new music champion Leonard Stein. His mission was to present and encourage the best of contemporary piano music and rarely heard treasures from centuries past. A protégé of Arnold Schoenberg and founding Director of the Schoenberg Institute, Stein served the Los Angeles community for over sixty years as a pianist, teacher, and concert presenter. To realize his dream of Piano Spheres, he chose four of his most adventurous colleagues and former students: Gloria Cheng, Vicki Ray, Mark Robson, and Susan Svrcek, to share in a unique cooperative venture: a concert series of solo piano recitals programmed by five Core Artists, all of whom shared a fierce dedication to new and unusual music. On September 13, 1994, marking the 120th anniversary of Schoenberg’s birth, Piano Spheres presented its first concert. Since then, it has continued to combine the highest musical standards with a passionate commitment to exploring the music of today, to create the piano repertoire of the future.
Piano Spheres’ Emerging Artist Series was launched after Stein‘s passing in 2004 to further his legacy and tradition of mentorship. In 2020, Piano Spheres added the dynamic piano duo HOCKET (Sarah Gibson and Thomas Kotcheff), and in 2022 and 2024 pianists Aron Kallay and Nic Gerpe joined their ranks as the first new Core Artists since 1994. Guest pianists have included composer-pianist Thomas Adès, Stephen Drury, Jeffrey Kahane, Kathleen Supové, Christopher O’Riley, Lisa Moore, Ursula Oppens, composer-pianist Terry Riley, Eric Huebner, Ralph van Raat, Liam Viney, the Bugallo-Williams Duo, the Viney-Grinberg Duo, Steven Vanhauwaert, and many others.
In 2021 Piano Spheres inaugurated the Leonard Stein Artist Residency, a program dedicated to locating, supporting and presenting pianists from historically underrepresented groups who specialize in the performance of new music and works by overlooked composers. Their first Stein artist in 2022/23 was Dr. William Chapman Nyaho whose work focuses on the music of the African Diaspora. Their 2023/24 Stein Artist was Althea Waites, who has championed the music of Black women composers during a 60+ year career in Los Angeles. In 2024/25 they will present Colombian-American pianist Dr. Andrés Jaramillo who specializes in the performance of LatinX composers
Piano Spheres celebrates their 30th anniversary with a program called ’30 for 30,’ to commission 30 composers to write new works for piano to be performed by Core Artists Nic Gerpe, Aron Kallay, Thomas Kotcheff, Vicki Ray and Mark Robson, Guest Artist Stephen Drury, Stein Resident Artist Andres Jaramillo, and Emerging Artist Thomas Mellan as part of their 2024/25 concert programs. All ‘30 for 30’ composers were chosen by our performing artists, and represent a wide field of local, national and international composers and include Thomas Meadowcroft, Taylor Brook, Veronika Krausas, Donald Crockett, Paola Marquez, Paul Moravec, and many others.
Piano Spheres dedicates its 2024/25 season to their beloved colleague, pianist, composer and educator Sarah Gibson who passed on July 14th, 2024. They will present a concert of her music on the anniversary of her passing on July 14th, 2025.
