Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner (Image courtesy Pasadena Playhouse)
Pasadena Presents, the new Pasadena Symphony and POPS concert model that adapts to COVID-related restrictions with an exciting online series of chamber music, features the music of George Gershwin and Czech composer Antonin Dvořák at 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 21.
Hosted by Pasadena Symphony Music Director David Lockington, each Pasadena Presents concert features a renowned guest artist performing a popular concerto in recital, followed by Pasadena Symphony musicians performing the greatest of chamber music masterpieces.
Saturday’s concert will have pianist Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner, a 23-year-old California native whose performances have stirred the intellect and humanity of his audiences on five continents, as guest performer.
Sanchez-Werner’s unique and multi-faceted artistry has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and on NPR, CNN International and WDR-Arte. He has been named a Gilmore Young Artist, an honor awarded every two years highlighting the most promising American pianists of the new generation. He also performed at the White House and Kennedy Center for President Obama’s second Inauguration concert.
During Saturday’s online event, he will be performing Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” and Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 12 “American.”
Viewers will also receive ”Insights” with Lockington as he shares exclusive behind-the-music stories and interviews.
Gershwin was one of the most significant American composers of the 20th century, known for popular stage and screen numbers as well as classical compositions. At 15, he dropped out of school and began playing piano professionally. Within a few years, he was one of the most sought after musicians in the United States. A composer of jazz, opera, and popular songs for stage and screen, many of his works are now standards. Gershwin died immediately following brain surgery on July 11, 1937, at the age of 38.
Born on Sept.8, 1841 in a small village north of Prague, Dvořák was the eldest of 14 children. His father was a professional zither player, an innkeeper and a butcher. Folk music accompanied every family occasion, and young Antonin soon joined his father in the local band – and served as an apprentice butcher.
He spent time in England and in New York, where he produced three of his most famous works, but eventually returned to Prague where he wrote operas and spent the rest of his life. He died in 1904.
All concerts in Pasadena Presents are performed at the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena.
To receive on-demand access to the live and recorded streams, visit www.pasadenasymphony-pops.org/
