Two of the region’s most celebrated musicians, pianist Virginia Eskin and guitarist Jose Lezcano join forces for a concert at the Sumner Knight Chapel on Saturday, May 28th at 7pm.
The Keene Music Festival, in collaboration with Keene Parks and Rec, and Southwestern Community Services presents a series of concerts at the Sumner Knight Chapel in Woodlawn Cemetery to help raise money to renovate the chapel. This amazing little venue features music in its natural form. No amplification or sound equipment is used during the show; though on occasion folks do use electric instruments. It’s music just as it’s always meant to be.
Admission is by donation, and usually around $10 or so; depending on the performers we bring in. All profits go towards renovation and preservation of the Sumner-Knight Chapel in Keene, New Hampshire, and to the performers.
Virginia Eskin is a classical pianist with a large and varied repertoire. She has championed and recorded music written by American composers (Edward MacDowell,Arthur Foote, George Chadwick, George Gershwin and many others); women composers such as Amy Beach, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Louise Talma, Marion Bauer, and Vítìzslava Kaprálová; and music written by composers who perished during the Holocaust. Virginia has also gained a reputation as a ragtime specialist and has found and recorded neglected works by American women. She created the “Ragtime Project” consisting of four CDs on the KOCH label and has appeared at the annual Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival in Sedalia, Missouri. Most recent programs include a concert for U.S. Embassy in Reykavik, Iceland, a recital tour of Croatia, a presentation of works by African American women composers at Boston University, and a recital at the U.S. embassy in Madrid
Described by Fanfare Magazine as “an excellent guitarist as well as an imaginative composer,” Jose Lezcano is a twice Grammy-nominated composer and performer who hasperformed on four continents. His programs featuring traditional and Latin American repertory, and his own original Latin-inspired compositions have taken him as recitalist, collaborative musician, and concerto soloist from Carnegie Recital Hall and the North-South Consonance Series in New York City to major venues and festivals in Spain, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Crete, Brazil, China, the Czech Republic and Germany. In November 2014, Jose appeared as soloist with the Portsmouth Symphony in Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, a cornerstone of the Spanish guitar repertory. He has he served as Artist in Residence at the Studios of Key West where he completed a commission for Duo Amaral; the Key West Suite for two guitars. Other recent performances include the Cuban premiere of his “Poemas Concertantes at the 27th Festival of Contemporary Music in Havana. Commissions and premieres include Fantasia Latina for guitar and harp, (2015 Centro del Mundo Festival in Quito, Ecuador), and “Canciones de Ausencia” (2015 Barcelona Festival of Song).
Tickets can be purchased in advance here.
