Jazz with Marcus Roberts, all-Schubert concerts conclude series
The 2006-07 Bates College Concert Series resumes at 8 p.m. Saturday, March 3, with a program of jazz by the Marcus Roberts Trio. The series concludes at 8 p.m. Friday, March 9, with an all-Schubert program performed by fortepianist Steven Lubin and baritone Thomas Meglioranza.
Both concerts take place in the college’s Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St. Admission for the Roberts concert is $15 and for the Schubert program, $5. For more information, click here. For reservations, please call 207-786-6135.
Marcus Roberts is a pianist and composer widely celebrated for giving new and vital interpretations to historical jazz styles. A player who attained prominence as a member of trumpeter Wynton Marsalis’ band, Roberts has dedicated himself to the seminal music of such greats as Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Jelly Roll Morton. He has also recorded concert music by Gershwin, James P. Johnson and Scott Joplin.
Roberts was the first jazz player to have his first three recordings reach No. 1 on Billboard’s traditional jazz chart. He has been honored with awards from the National Association of Jazz Educators and the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. Blind since age 5, he received the Helen Keller Award for Personal Achievement in 1998.
Completing the trio are drummer Jason Marsalis, a member of the highly musical Marsalis family, and bassist Roland Guerin, a versatile musician who is one of the few jazz bassists using the “slap” technique.
Fortepianist Steven Lubin and baritone Thomas Meglioranza present an all-Schubert concert at 8 p.m. Friday, March 9. The program includes the “Schwanengesang” song cycle, the A-major Piano Sonata and some of Schubert’s best-loved lieder. Admission is $5.
Praised for “vocal distinction and expressive warmth” (The Boston Globe), Thomas Meglioranza is one of the country’s most sought-after young singers. He is known for compelling artistry and a remarkably versatile voice equally at home with Monteverdi, Schubert, Babbitt or Gershwin.
In March 2006, he was featured in a New York performance titled Twin Spirits: The Words and Music of Robert and Clara Schumann, starring rock star Sting and his wife Trudie Styler. Meglioranza starred in the North American premiere of Peter Eötvös’ operatic adaptation of “Angels in America” with Opera Boston, and other recent dates include debuts with the MET Chamber Ensemble with James Levine.
Lubin has appeared as soloist in many of the world’s great concert halls and in major international festivals. As a fortepianist, Lubin has been a dominating figure for more than two decades. In New York, starting in the late 1970s, he pioneered a series of fortepiano recitals and concerto performances of Mozart in period style, as soloist-conductor.
Among his 20 CDs, his recordings of Mozart concertos for Arabesque introduced many listeners to period-style performance of this repertoire. He was chosen by Decca to record the five piano concertos of Beethoven with Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music, a recording cited as definitive.
