Dr. William Chapman Nyaho
November 26, 2018
Wolfeboro Friends of Music heralds the winter season and coming
holidays with a spectacular program by pianist Dr. William Chapman
Nyaho, to be given on Sunday, December 2 starting at 2 pm. Dr. Nyaho was
last heard in the area in 2011. The concert will take place at Anderson
Hall, Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro.
The sonorities of Brewster’s Yamaha concert grand will sound forth as
Dr. Nyaho opens with Bach transcriptions including “Jesu, Joy of Man’s
Desiring” in the Myra Hess version. More transcriptions are slated in an
enticing group of Gershwin songs embellished by the scintillating
pianist Earl Wild published as “Seven Virtuoso Etudes”.
Dr. Nyaho promises selections such as “Fascinating Rhythm”,
Embraceable You”, “The Man I Love”. Centerpiece of the concert will be
Beethoven’s final piano sonata when we may expect these words of one
reviewer of Nyaho, to be revealed: “Effortless technique, splendid
rhythmic grasp and fullness of tone allowed his performance to reach
great heights…” (The Desert Sun, Palm Springs, CA.). Sonata No. 32 in C
minor, Op. 111 demands a dedication of purpose and wondrous attention as
the final Arietta rises through a multiplicity of figures to end softly
in a heavenly transcendence.
Dr. Nyaho is a productive musicologist, collector, publisher, since
over the decades he has compiled and published with Oxford University
Press, five performing volumes of piano pieces titled “Piano Music of
Africa and the African Diaspora”. He introduces us to Robert Nathaniel
Dett, born in Niagara Canada in 1882 and who died in 1943 after a
fulsome career as composer, pianist, choral conductor, organist and
music professor who performed at Carnegie Hall and at Symphony Hall in
Boston. Attendees of the concert also will hear Dett’s piano suite “In
the Bottoms (Suite characteristique)” in five movements marked Prelude
(Night), His Song, Honey (Humoresque), Barcarolle (Morning) and Dance
(Juba).
Further, the audience may view his five volumes of the Oxford
publication during intermission, as well as obtain Nyaho’s CD’s ‘Senku’
and ‘Asa’ issued by MSR Classics. Chapman Nyaho’s performances have
taken him to Africa, the Caribbean, and Asia as well as to Washington
D.C.’s Kennedy Center and Princeton University. He is a frequent guest
at colleges and universities and serves in the capacity of adjudicator
for national and international piano competitions. He is an active
member of the Music Teachers’ National Association, currently teaches at
Pacific Lutheran University and a beloved piano instructor at his home
studio in Seattle.
No comments:
Post a Comment