Federico Mompou, Música Callada, 28 Pieces for Piano in 4 Books
Joseph Haydn, Sonata in D Major, Hob. XVI: 42
John Cage, 4’33”
Olivier Messiaen, Regard du Silence
Born in Romania and based in Berlin since 1997, Michael Abramovich is a frequent performer across Europe and around the world, both as a piano soloist and as a conductor. As musical director of the Ensemble Alkan, which he cofounded with Misha Aster in 2009, he conceived and presented the concert series “Im Buntesten Chaos” at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. He also conducted the Gala Concert of the Hamburg Symphony that year and, in 2010, the Berlin premiere of Erwin Schulhoff’s Oratorium The Communist Manifesto in the Kammermusiksaal of the Berlin Philharmonie.
As a pianist and as a conductor, Abramovich has performed in such venues as the Rheingau Musik Festival, the Heidelberg Spring, the Multiphonies Cycle Acousmatique in Paris, the Festival de Radio France et Montpellier, the Bard Music Festival in New York, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Staatsoper Berlin, and the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg; he has appeared with many orchestras, including the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Asian Youth Orchestra, the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bucharest Chamber Orchestra, the Moldova Philharmonic Orchestra, the Basque National Orchestra, and the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra. With the Ludwigsburg Festival Orchestra, he toured South Africa with a complete cycle of Beethoven’s piano concertos. He has given solo recitals in Mexico City, Salt Lake City, Amsterdam (Concertgebouw), St Petersburg, and throughout Germany.
Abramovich has performed with Anne-Sophie Mutter, Sergiu Comissiona, Leon Botstein, the Jerusalem Quartet, Reiner Goldberg, and Wolfgang Meyer, among many others. In addition to radio recordings for Südwest-Rundfunk Deutschland, Radio 3 Rome, the Israel Broadcasting Authority, and Radio France he has also recorded the songs of Friedrich Hollaender with Dagmar Manzel and the Orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin for Deutsche Grammophon in 2013; Sonatas for Violin and Piano by Claude Debussy, LeoÅ¡ JanáÄek, and Richard Strauss for Meridian Records London (with the violinist Ittai Shapira); and, for Universal Classics France, the “Neuf études aux deux mondes (pour piano et dispositif informatique),” a work dedicated to him by the French composer Pierre Charvet.
Photo of Michael Abramovich by Helga Kurzchalia
Reception to follow at 8:15 p.m.
Co-sponsored by the Scripps College Music Department