Versatile Pianist Is

Returning To Newtown

The multi-talented pianist Melvin Chen will return to Edmond Town Hall’s auditorium on Sunday, March 21, at 3 pm, to perform a concert presented by Newtown Friends of Music.

Mr Chen was last heard in Newtown just a year ago, when he played with the violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama. He so impressed both audience and reviewers that he was invited to return this season for a solo performance.

Mr Chen completed a doctorate in chemistry from Harvard University, and also holds a double master’s degree from the Juilliard School in piano and violin, where he studied with Seymour Lipkin and Glenn Dicterow, respectively. He is on the piano faculty of Yale School of Music and is a visiting professor at Bard College, where he has taught courses in both music and science. Mr Chen finds the two disciplines compatible.

“Both music and science are abstract languages that assist in the search for truth,” he said in an interview for The Kingston Daily Freeman. “Music tells the truth of who we are and why we feel certain ways, and science tells us how the world works.”

Mr Chen’s concert is being sponsored by The Homesteads at Newtown.

The program for March 21 will be characteristically wide-ranging, including baroque, classical, romantic and contemporary composers, and concluding with a crowd-pleasing medley of American folk tunes by Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Along the way, Mr Chen will play sonatas by Scarlatti, waltzes by Ravel, a Mozart Fantasia, three Chopin nocturnes, descriptive pieces by Debussy, and an unconventional and eloquent work by the American composer Jennifer Higdon.

An enthusiastic chamber musician, Mr Chen has collaborated with such artists as Ida Kavafian, Steven Tenenbom, David Shifrin, Robert White, Pamela Frank, Peter Wiley, and members of the St. Lawrence, Mendelssohn, Miami, Orion, Borromeo, and Arditti Quartets.

Mr Chen was selected to be a member of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: Chamber Music Society Two, where he appeared with members of the Chamber Music Society in performance and educational programs for two seasons. A performer in numerous music festivals, he has performed at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, Chautauqua, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Bard Music Festival, and Music from Angel Fire, among others.

He is a performer on Wynton Marsalis’ series on music education, “Marsalis on Music”, and can also be heard on Discover, Nices, and KBS label compact discs with the violinist Juliette Kang.

Free parking and handicap access are available for the concert at Edmond Town Hall. Light refreshments provided by The Homesteads at Newtown will be served following the performance to give the audience an opportunity to speak with the artists in an informal setting.

Tickets are $15 for adults. Children between the ages of five and 14 are welcome and admitted free of charge when accompanied by a ticket-holding adult.

For further information and reservations call 426-6470 or write to Newtown Friends of Music at PO Box 295, Newtown CT 06470-0295, visit www.NewtownFriendsOfMusic.org, or send email to FriendsOfMusic@snet.net.

Tickets will also be available at the box office in the theater one hour before the start of the concert.