Programme
In Memory (2016)Christopher Stark
(b. 1980)
From Preludes, Book II (1913)Claude Debussy
Feuilles mortes(1862-1918)
La Puerta del Vino
La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune
General Lavine, eccentric
Chorale from Jatékok, book V/11 (1981)György Kurtág
(b. 1926)
Elegy (2016)Joseph Phibbs
(b. 1974)
Chorale from Album Leaves (2002)Steven Stucky
(1949-2016)
Preludes (2024)Elizabeth Ogonek
freely, gently(b. 1989)
peppy, cheerful
majestic
sweetly, with affection
quasi-improvisatory
from Sonata for Piano (2014)Steven Stucky
Chorale and Coda
Artist Bio
Xak Bjerken was for many years a member of the Los Angeles Piano Quartet, and has held chamber music residencies at Tanglewood, the Avaloch Farm Music Institute, and the Spoleto Festival, and has taught and performed at the Aspen Music Festival, Kneisel Hall, Icicle Creek, and the Kfar Blum festival in Israel. Bjerken performs regularly with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestras, and for over twenty years he has directed Ensemble X, the new music group founded by Steven Stucky. Xak has worked closely with composers Győrgy Kurtag, Sofia Gubaidulina, and George Benjamin, and recently recorded two albums of original compositions with the Bluegrass ensemble EZRA. He is professor of music at Cornell University where he co-directs the international chamber music festival Mayfest with his wife, pianist Miri Yampolsky. He studied with Aube Tzerko at the UCLA and received his master’s and doctoral degrees from the Peabody Conservatory as a student of and teaching assistant to Leon Fleisher.
