Elizabeth Morgan: Keyboard Works from the Musical Notebooks of Jane Austen

Elizabeth Morgan

Keyboard Works from the Musical Notebooks of Jane Austen

Concert Benefit for The Piedmont Center for the Arts

Friday, May 25, 2012    8:00pm  Tickets $20/general

Elizabeth Morgan, Pianist

Praised by the Baltimore Sun for her “achingly sweet touch at the keyboard,” American pianist and musicologist, Elizabeth Morgan, brings history and performance alive in her conversational recitals, writing, lectures, and teaching. A native of Oakland, she received her undergraduate and master’s degrees in piano performance at The Juilliard School before completing a PhD in music history as a Dean’s Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles. Currently assistant professor of music history and piano performance at Saint Joseph’s University, she maintains a busy performance schedule.

Ms. Morgan frequently gives conversational recitals, where she introduces musical works with commentary from the keyboard, often crafting programs around a single theme or idea. She is best known for a conversational recital program of musical works related to Jane Austen, which she has performed throughout the United States and at venues around England, including the Jane Austen Memorial Archive and the Cobbe Collection.

Ms. Morgan has performed as soloist in many major American venues. Highlights include performances in Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, Society Hall, the Kociuszko Foundation (New York), the New York Library for the Performing Arts, Herbst Theatre (San Francisco), and the Clark Library (Los Angeles). She has been invited to give lectures and recitals at Vassar College, Lawrence University, Neue Galerie, and the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Ms. Morgan has appeared as a soloist with orchestras on both coasts and has performed with the Mark Morris Dance Company. She has performed at festivals including Tanglewood, where she spent two summers as a Tanglewood Music Center fellow, Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, Festival of the Hamptons, Pianofest, Aspen Music Festival, and Bowdoin International Music Festival. She has performed on National Public Television, where she was profiled as part of an American Masters documentary, on National German Radio, and on local radio stations throughout the United States.

Ms. Morgan’s research and writing focus on music of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, particularly works for the keyboard and for small ensembles. She is particularly interested in embodiment, virtuosity, music and gender, and performance studies. Her research has been recognized with numerous awards, including an ACLS New Faculty Fellowship at Columbia University, sponsored by the Mellon Foundation, the Mary Wollstonecraft Dissertation Award from the UCLA Center for the Study of Women, and a Clark Library Dissertation Year Fellowship from the UCLA Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies. Her writing is forthcoming with Ashgate Publishing and in the journal 19th-Century Music.

Program:  

Keyboard Works from the Musical Notebooks of Jane Austen

Thomas Powell (1776-c.1836), Variations on “My Love is But a Lassie Yet”

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), Sonata in C Major, Allegro con brio, Adagio, Finale: Allegro

John Baptiste Cramer (1771-1858), “Spanish Fandango” from the Sixth Divertimento for the Pianoforte

Daniel Steibelt (1765-1823), Rondo from “The Storm” Concerto

Intermission

Ignaz Pleyel (1757-1831), Pleyel’s Celebrated Overture. Overture-Allegro Molto. Adagio ma non troppo. Rondo: Moderato

Francis Kotzwara (1740-1791), The Battle of Prague