La Jolla|Local Event
Gershwin in Vienna: Piano Concert-Lecture with Levi Hammer | Athenaeum Music & Arts Library
Gershwin in Vienna
Concert-Lecture presented by Levi Hammer, piano
Tuesday, May 26, 2026
Levi Hammer’s solo piano album Gershwin in Vienna brings together his American roots and his current life in Europe, where he has lived for the last decade. The historical and musical connections between Gershwin, Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern are fascinating but rarely explored beyond a tantalizing footnote. At the Athenaeum, Hammer will play much of the album and speak about the musical parallels between Gershwin and the Viennese modernist masters. Paintings by Gershwin and Schoenberg—both accomplished painters!—will accompany Hammer’s performance of their music. In addition, the composers’ Californian connection will be highlighted in a short film shot on Gershwin’s own tennis court in Los Angeles in the 1930s—right where their legendary tennis matches took place. This program is also an artistic and personal self-portrait of Hammer himself as he describes growing from a child of the Great American Songbook to a conductor and pianist wrestling with the rigorous beauties of the Second Viennese School.
Levi Hammer; photo credit: Denislav Matzel
About Levi Hammer:
Known for his remarkable range and versatility, Levi Hammer performs regularly as both a conductor and pianist. He has conducted orchestras across the United States and Europe, and his repertoire encompasses more than 70 operas. Additionally, he has prepared acclaimed operatic productions for major conductors, including Lorin Maazel, Simon Rattle, Zubin Mehta, and Gustavo Dudamel. Besides the standard repertoire, Hammer is an accomplished performer of both Baroque and contemporary music. As a pianist, he appears as a concerto soloist, chamber musician, and art song collaborator, and he has frequently performed Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and Aaron Copland’s complete music for piano.
“Where words fail, music speaks.”