The International Beethoven Project

Join the president of the International Beethoven Project, and concert pianist, George Lepauw on Sunday, April 10 2011 at 6 pm, at Steingraeber Studio, 3640 Dempster Road in Skokie, Illinois (inside the Grand Piano Haus building) for a performance and conversation on Beethoven, and to hear a major announcement you will be excited to learn about! This event has a suggested donation amount of $20 per adult and $5 per child and student.  For those of you unable to attend, make sure you are signed for our newsletter to receive the announcement in your inbox next week (if you have received our emails in the last year then you should be fine): www.InternationalBeethovenProject.com

You don’t absolutely need to RSVP, but the hall is relatively intimate, and to ensure your seat, you should leave an RSVP in the comment box here or email us directly at International Beethoven Project [at] gmail [.com]. We will only write back to you if we are overcapacity, so once you RSVP all you need to do is show up on Sunday! Seating is first come first serve, and doors open at 5:30pm.  We look forward to seeing you!

This December (2010), we are especially looking forward to celebrating Beethoven’s 240th Birthday on Thursday, December 16th at the PianoForte Salon at the Fine Arts Building, 410 S. Michigan Ave. Chicago, IL at 6:30pm.  This is a free concert (with suggested donation at the door) but space is limited, so please RSVP now by leaving a message at 312-772-5821 or by email at InternationalBeethovenProject at gmail dot com.  It will truly be a very special evening! Don’t miss it…

George Lepauw also celebrates by performing Beethoven’s 1st Piano Sonata live on Chicago’s Classical Station, WFMT 98.7 fm (also available at www.wfmt.com or on the free iPhone App (wfmt)) on Wednesday, December 1st, at 3pm CST.  George will also perform the 21st Sonata, the Waldstein, on Tuesday December 21st, live on WFMT, at 10 am.  Tune in!

There are many great events scheduled this Spring!  You can always check our schedule page to see all details and to purchase tickets.

The Beethoven Project Chamber Players, after a successful debut last Fall, performs Friday March 26th to mark the 183rd anniversary of Beethoven’s death (March 26th, 1827), a concert at the gorgeous Nichols Hall at the Music Institute of Chicago in Evanston, Illinois.  The program includes Mozart’s Piano Concerto Number 13, K415 in C Major, Beethoven’s Violin Sonata Number 10 Opus 96 in G Major, and Brahms’ beautiful Piano Quintet in f minor Opus 34.  Our special guest will be David Taylor, Assistant Concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

The Beethoven Project Trio continues its fascinating complete cycle of Beethoven’s Piano Trios on Wednesday April 7th, at the historic Fine Arts Building in downtown Chicago, and on Thursday May 6th, and Friday May 7th they will perform at the Music Institute of Chicago’s Nichols Hall in Evanston.  On May 6th, they will be joined by special guest Larry Combs, former Principal Clarinet of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, for performances of Beethoven’s two clarinet trios.

May 7th will be the Celebratory CD Release Concert and reception for the first CD of the Beethoven Project Trio.  The recording of unknown Beethoven Piano Trios will be publicly released May 25th, but will be available for purchase at this concert!  The program will include the works recorded as well as the “Ghost” Trio, one of Beethoven’s most beloved.

To buy tickets to any of these concerts, please visit our schedule page.

Information on the Lincoln Center, New York City debut of the Beethoven Project Trio on May 18th will be posted next week!

Today, December 16th, marks Ludwig van Beethoven’s 239th birthday. It is for us all a day of celebration, and is an opportunity for us to wish all of you wonderful holidays as well. During these next weeks, which are a little slower for most, perhaps you might consider taking the time to listen to some Beethoven? How about some string quartets? Piano sonatas? Or even some symphonies which perhaps you have not listened to in a long time? If you love opera, Beethoven’s Fidelio is a masterpiece in the genre, and a private, home listening experience can always be very rewarding and revelatory.  When at the opera, one’s focus is on the stage and the story; at home, however, one can really listen to the music… Of course, Beethoven always makes a great gift, and we encourage you to support the classical music industry this holiday season! Our first CD will not come out until the Spring time, so wait on buying piano trios until then.

Much is going to be taking place for the IBP in 2010.  Please follow us, check the schedule regularly and come out for concerts, lectures, master classes, and more!

If you live outside of Chicago and feel left out, perhaps you would consider starting a chapter of the IBP in your community? This can lead to many wonderful events in your area, and we encourage you to contact us to discuss these possibilities.

New York City! We are coming to you in 2010.  The Beethoven Project Trio is making its debut May 18th, at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center. It is going to be an amazing concert and event, so get the word out and make sure you let us know you are out there so we can let you know when the box office opens in advance. The trio will perform the East Coast premiere of the Beethoven trios they recently recorded for Cedille Records (the CD will come out shortly before the concert). Anybody interested in being part of the new and growing chapter of the IBP in New York, to help plan events and garner support, is very welcome.  Please contact us!

Thank you all for your support this year, and for helping to make our big dreams possible. We are thrilled, as the year closes out, that several articles in print and online have appeared around the world picking the March 1st, 2009 Beethoven World Premiere concert in Chicago’s Murphy Auditorium as a highlight of musical events in 2009, including John von Rhein’s 2009 highlights in the Chicago Tribune last week.

May 2009 close out peacefully and may 2010 be a great year for all.

We were so thrilled that so many wonderful people attended our little fundraising dinner and concert at the private residence of Hervé and Isabelle de la Vauvre.  It was in every way a beautiful event and every donation goes a long way to help us fulfill our mission and our current projects, most notably the recording and the documentary film presently in production.  Here are a couple of pictures from that special night, with a deep thank you to our hosts and to all our guests, not to forget the wonderful dinner cooked up by Dominique Tougne, executive chef at Bistro 110 in Chicago… !

We played Beethoven's Opus 1 No. 3 for the first time, and redid the E Flat Major trio H47

And our amazing hosts Hervé and Isabelle:

Herve and Isabelle de la Vauvre

And the inimitable chef Dominique Tougne with Hervé:

Chef Dominique Tougne steps out of the kitchen!

We still need support!  If you donate $150 or more before December 5th, your name will be recognized in the booklet of the world premiere recording we made, which will be sold in stores around the world.  This could also make a nice holiday gift for a classical music lover.

Visit our Donate page, or you can donate directly online here. As our parent organization is the PianoForte Foundation, simply write Beethoven in the comment box before you confirm your donation:

Donate

Thank you! Happy Thanksgiving.

This is one of the television stories that appeared on the trio as it prepared the world premiere performance of March 1st, 2009 at Chicago’s Murphy Auditorium.

http://www.nbcchicago.com/around-town/archive/Lost_Beethoven_Work_to_Make_Debut_in_Chicago_Chicago.html

And here, another news clip from ABC Chicago:

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=6680050

- Saturday, 11/14/09 – Evanston, Illinois – 6:30pm – Fundraiser for the International Beethoven Project.  There will be a short concert by the Beethoven Project Trio, special guests, artist-reporter Franklin McMahon, New Yorker cartoonist Pat Byrnes, and some surprises – There will be a small auction, and a fantastic dinner prepared by Chef Dominique Tougne of Bistro 110 in Chicago.  $150 per person, which is fully tax-deductible.  Please write to us if you are interested and want an invitation mailed directly to you. 

This is the last fundraising opportunity before the CD goes to print, and anyone contributing to this fundraising drive, whether in attendance or not, will get their name listed in the booklet of this historic world premiere Beethoven recording.  Even if you cannot join us for this wonderful evening, please consider making a donation at any level to give us a hand and become a part of the support team!  Visit Buy/Donate for more details on giving.  Every little bit helps.  Thank you!

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For those interested, George Lepauw’s interview with Wendy Warner about her mentor and teacher Mstislav Rostropovich is now online at http://thejoam.com/articles . Enjoy!

Written by George Lepauw

My preliminary trip to New York was full of great surprises. I arrived on a beautiful Summer day, hot but not excessively so, and after having lunch at a surprisingly good and tasty French style bakery and cafe, Le Pain Quotidien, at the corner of 58th and 7th, which I later found out is a multinational chain (but what quality! Much is organic and the bread is really French and really fresh!), I headed straight to Klavierhaus. Klavierhaus is located at 211 W. 58th, between Broadway and 7th Avenue, and is on what is known as “Piano Row,” which makes sense because it is only a block or so away from Carnegie Hall. Some great pianos, and some lesser pianos, all have dealers on “Piano Row.” Klavierhaus is a magical place, and unless you knew what was inside, you may not hardly notice it from the street, as the storefront is truly very modest. Once inside, however, beautiful historical pianos and of course gorgeous modern pianos await admirers and pianists. I immediately met the pair of brothers who own and run the place, Gabor and Sujatri Reisinger, Hungarian expatriates. What I admire in them is their infinite passion for these instruments, which they know everything about, and upon which they do much of the work themselves, being some of the finest technicians in New York. I was immediately led to the two pianos reserved for me to try, a beautiful Hamburg Steinway, and a magnificent Fazioli F278.

Now some people might think that here comes the grand moment of truth: George Lepauw compares the best Steinway to the best Fazioli side by side, and makes a defining choice that will affect not only his instrument choices for the rest of his life but also inspire others to choose one instrument over the other! So is Steinway truly the “finest piano” as advertised on the Steinway website, or is Fazioli, this beautiful Italian newcomer, about to supersede Steinway’s claim?

Objectively speaking, I think I can easily make the claim, supported by technicians the world over, that Fazioli is a more perfect instrument. From all standpoints of the mechanics of piano making, Fazioli is simply a very high-tech instrument of the modern era of precision engineering. In many ways, it is comparable to a finely tuned modern sports car, perhaps in the Ferrari range. If Fazioli is akin to a Ferrari, however, a great Steinway is probably akin to a beautiful Rolls Royce… and as different as these two cars are, these two pianos are similarly different. They ‘ride’ very differently, they do not feel the same at all and they sound like two very different, but unique, voices. I think it might be easier to get a more beautiful sound out of a Steinway, but if you know how to ‘drive’ the Fazioli, you can get incredibly beautiful sounds as well. In truth, they each have very wonderful qualities, and neither can be anything like the other. Who said there was anything wrong with enjoying both Ferraris and Rolls Royces? Maybe one day you want a spectacular ride through Tuscany, maybe another day you want to enjoy a leisurely ride through the English countryside! They are both unique and wonderful experiences.

After playing each of them for a little while, I eventually settled on the Fazioli. I felt that it was a more unique piano (now it is not all about the make, but also about the individual instrument that was presented to me on that day), and that the Hamburg Steinway, for all of its truly amazing qualities, did not quite ring the way I was hoping for this particular recording and for this repertoire. I wanted a sound that was in some ways youthful, energetic, and full of life, to record pieces that Beethoven wrote in his twenties when he was himself full of life and youthful energy. I wanted the listener of this recording to be especially aware of that quality, and to me, the Fazioli was better suited to helping me achieve that goal. It had a youthful energy in its sound without being superficial and thin; indeed, the Fazioli has tremendous power! Yet this piano had a certain ‘bite’ that I enjoyed.

Once the piano issue was settled upon, I left Klavierhaus and went on a search for an apartment to sublet the following week, which is by far the most economical way for us to live in New York for a week. I visited several interesting and nice places, and found one that was truly spectacular and unique in very many unexpected ways. I will say more about it later.

Then, I was thrilled to go have dinner with an old college friend whom I had not seen in many years, Mike Cahill. We met in the East Village, one of New York’s great areas, filled with fantastic restaurants and very European – small streets, people everywhere, artists, bohemians, etc. The dinner having hardly given us enough time to catch up, we continued over wine at his house not too far off, where we talked (I even played some piano for him) until four in the morning! By that time, it had been agreed that Mike, an amazingly talented filmmaker everyone in the world will soon know, would film our recording sessions and develop a documentary about our project. From that moment on, Mike has been a member of our team and I must say, it has and will continue to be a blast.

Somehow, I managed to get myself up early the next day to run a few errands, including some score purchases at the Juilliard bookstore (which happens to be in a trailer until the main building’s renovations are finished), before heading off to the airport. Luck would have it that once in the plane, after having departed from our gate, we were grounded for three hours until a major storm passed over and we could finally fly to Chicago. Unfortunately the plane was packed, and I was stuck between two strangers. That did not keep me from dozing off and making the most of that situation!