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Project [BLANK] opens the 2022 season with a concert of genre-defying works for solo piano by Amy Beach, Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, and Missy Mazzoli. Performed by Project [BLANK] co-founder Brendan Nguyen, the music of these groundbreaking, idiosyncratic composers explores themes of joy, displacement, and love. All are invited to join us for a gala reception following the performance, as we celebrate the start of our new season and the return to in-person performance. Keep scrolling to learn more about Brendan and the composers.
AMY BEACH Out of the Depths, Op. 130 / A Cradle Song of the Lonely Mother, op.108 / Dreaming, Op. 15
EMAHOY TSEGUÉ-MARYAM GUÈBROU The Mad Man’s Laughter / The Jordan River Song / Ballade of the Spirits
MISSY MAZZOLI Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Pianos / A Map of Laughter / Orizzonte / Bolts of Loving Thunder / Heartbreaker
The PRACTICE ROOM
In this rehearsal clip, pianist Brendan Nguyen goes through "Dreaming" by Amy Beach.
Project [BLANK] co-founder Brendan Nguyen discusses the profound loneliness of playing solo repertoire, the injustice of excluding female composers from the historical canon, and how he plans on taking us on a journey exploring the complexities of love, ending with ecstatic joy!
To learn how to pronounce Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, click here.
BRENDAN NGUYEN
Pianist
BRENDAN NGUYEN is a pianist who displays uncommon versatility as a performer, artist and thinker. His bold programming style, infusion of technology and extravagantly produced concert concepts aim to explore new musical territory while casting a contemporary eye on the established canon.
Brendan has performed at prestigious concert halls and concert series including the REDCAT Theater at the Disney Hall in Los Angeles, Zipper Hall, the Monday Evening Concert series, Merkin Hall and The Stone in New York. He is also a former member of the highly acclaimed Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, Echoi, and Palimpsest ensembles, and has recorded with Carrier Records and Populist Records. Brendan’s most recent project The Seven Tragedies of Space Travel was conceived as a multi-space, multi-media, opera for solo pianist that mixes western performance tradition with technology, food, and aliens who speak Vietnamese.
He has worked closely and in workshops with composers such as George Crumb, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, and Lewis Nielson. Brendan’s enthusiasm for contemporary music has lead to a number of premieres and commissions, including works by Wojtek Blecharz, Aaron Helgeson, Nicholas Deyoe, Clint McCallum, Josiah Oberholtzer, and by Pulitzer Prize winning composer Roger Reynolds. He has also performed with ICE violinist David Bowlin, pianist Aleck Karis, and percussionist Steven Schick.
Brendan performed at the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine as a recipient of a Performer’s Associate Fellowship. There, he was featured both as soloist and chamber musician on the Upbeat! Concert Series and the Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music alongside esteemed faculty and guest artists. Brendan has also made appearances at the Shandelee International Music Festival in New York as two-time recipient of the C.J. Huang Foundation Scholarship and the Jim Ricketts Foundation Scholarship. In 2004, he was invited to perform again at Shandelee and honored as one of the most outstanding alumni since the festival’s foundation.
A graduate of the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music in Ohio (BM, 2005) and UC San Diego (MM, 2010/DMA, 2015), Brendan has also studied at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in the Netherlands with Jan Wijn. His teachers also include Aleck Karis (UC San Diego), Alvin Chow (Oberlin Conservatory), Yong Hi Moon (Peabody Institute of Music), and the late Earl Wild. He has also studied in master classes with Yoheved Kaplinksy (Juilliard), Martin Canin (Juilliard), Julian Martin (Juilliard), and Craig Sheppard (U of WA). He currently teaches private piano to undergraduate majors and a keyboard skills class at UC San Diego.
Amy Beach
1867-1944
Known as the first female composer to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra (her “Gaelic” Symphony, premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1896), she was also one of the first U.S. composers to have her music be recognized in Europe, and THE first classical U.S. composer to achieve success without the benefit of European study.
A remarkable child prodigy, she made her public debut as a pianist in 1883, also the year of her first published compositions. In 1885 she performed with the Boston Symphony, but upon her marriage to the distinguished surgeon, Dr. H.H.A. Beach, she curtailed her performing in accordance with his wishes, and focused on composition. She made one performance per year, with the proceeds donated to charity, and one of these performances was of her own piano concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1900. Following the death of her husband in 1910, she resumed performing, and toured Europe to great acclaim, performing her own music, until the onset of WWI.
Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou
b. 1923
Yewubdar Guebrou was born in Addis Abeba on December 12, 1923 to a privileged family. Her father Kentiba Guebrou and her mother Kassaye Yelemtu both had a place in high society. Yewubdar was sent to Switzerland at the age of six along with her sister Senedu Guebrou. Both attended a girls' boarding school where Yewubdar studied the violin and then the piano.
She gave her first violin recital at the age of ten. She returned to Ethiopia in 1933 to continue her studies at the Empress Menen Secondary School. In 1937 young Yewubdar and her family were taken prisoners of war by the Italians and deported to the island of Asinara, north of Sardinia, and later to Mercogliano near Naples.
Young Yewubdar secretly fled Addis Abeba at the age of 19 to enter the Guishen Maryam monastery in the Wello region where she had once before visited with her mother. She served two years in the monastery and was ordained a nun at the age of 21. She took on the title Emahoy and her name was changed to Tsegue Maryam. Despite the difficult life in a religious order and the limited appreciation for her music in traditional Ethiopian culture, Emahoy worked fervently day and night. Often she played up to nine hours a day and went on to write many compositions for violin, piano, and organ concerto.
After the war Yewubdar resumed her musical studies in Cairo, under a Polish violinist named Alexander Kontorowicz. Yewubdar returned to Ethiopia accompanied by Kontorowicz and she served as an administrative assistant in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and later in the Imperial Body Guard where Kontorowicz was appointed by Emperor Haile Selassie as music director of the band.
Missy Mazzoli
b. 1980
Recently deemed “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York” (NY Times), “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart” (Time Out NY), and praised for her “apocalyptic imagination” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker), Missy Mazzoli has had her music performed by the Kronos Quartet, LA Opera, eighth blackbird, the BBC Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, Scottish Opera and many others. In 2018 she became, along with Jeanine Tesori, one of the first woman to receive a main stage commission from the Metropolitan Opera, and was nominated for a Grammy award in the category of “Best Classical Composition”. She is currently the Mead Composer-in-Residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and from 2012-2015 was Composer-in-Residence with Opera Philadelphia. Her 2018 opera Proving Up, created with longtime collaborator librettist Royce Vavrek and based on a short story by Karen Russell, is a surreal commentary on the American dream. It was commissioned and premiered by Washington National Opera, Opera Omaha and Miller Theatre, and was deemed “harrowing… a true opera for its time” by the Washington Post. Her 2016 opera Breaking the Waves, commissioned by Opera Philadelphia and Beth Morrison Projects, was called “one of the best 21st-century American operas yet” by Opera News. Breaking the Waves received its European premiere at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival; future performances are planned at LA Opera, Houston Grand Opera, and the Adelaide Festival. Her next opera, The Listeners, will premiere in 2021 at the Norwegian National Opera and Opera Philadelphia. In 2016, Missy and composer Ellen Reid founded Luna Lab, a mentorship program for young female composers created in partnership with the Kaufman Music Center. Her works are published by G. Schirmer.
COVID-19 POLICY
To ensure the safety of our patrons and artists, Project [BLANK] is implementing the following procedures for all in-person performances and events:
Masks are required for all audience members while inside our indoor venues, except while eating and drinking in designated areas.
If you are feeling unwell or showing symptoms of COVID-19, please do not attend. We will be happy to refund your ticket.
Project [BLANK] will update these policies based on any changes in the recommendations and requirements of the State of California and national leadership. Thank you for helping to make our events safe and comfortable for everyone!