(9/6)
Concert pianist Dan Franklin Smith will perform a classical
program at Mount St. Mary University on Sunday, September 10
at 7:30 p.m. Admission for the event is free.
The recordings of this artist have been widely broadcast throughout the
United States. Recently WWFM in Trenton and WQED in Pittsburgh joined the long
list of classical stations around the country to broadcast Swiss composer Hans
Huber’s Piano Concerti Nos. 1 and 3, recorded by Smith with the Stuttgart
Philharmonic under the baton of Michail Jurowsky. The recording was produced by
Sterling Grammofonskivor, a Swedish company, and has garnered excellent reviews
in Europe and the US.
This disc, as well as Smith’s debut recording of Swedish composer Kurt
Atterberg's Piano Concerto, has been broadcast throughout the US, from
Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Washington, D.C., St. Paul, Columbus, San Diego,
Phoenix--where it was named "CD of the Week" last summerConnecticut, the
entire state of Minnesota, and Mexico.
The American Record Guide, in its September issue, said: "The performances
are both brilliant. The American Dan Franklin Smith plays with a real flair for
these works." In the UK, musicweb.uk.net wrote: "The considerable strength of
this disc lies in a magically performed Third Concerto....This is an example of
profundity and sincerity in the silver-plated realms of the romantic piano
concerto." And a German review, from Crescendo, called "the interpretive
results...remarkable."
In his recording debut featuring the Kurt Atterberg concerto, Smith was
hailed by BBC Music Magazine as "a dazzling soloist." Gramophone called him "an
ideal exponent" of the concerto and Fanfare praised him for giving it "a
rousingly committed and bravura send-off." Records International described the
concerto itself as "a full-throated, dizzyingly romantic work from 1927-35
…full of nature lyricism, magic and melancholy …with Nordic harmonies and much
brilliant and demanding work for the soloist. No lover of piano concertos can
fail to be seduced by this intoxicating work."
The soloist on both discs, Dan Franklin Smith, concertizes in the US, Europe
and the UK, in addition to his recording activities. He makes his home in New
York City. A recent performance at the Goethe Institute, facing the
Metropolitan Museum, under the auspices of "Elysium: Between Two Continents,"
led to an invitation to perform at their June festival in H