February 6, 2002

Contact:

Sarah Ray

802-443-5794

sray@middlebury.edu

Posted: February 6, 2002

MIDDLEBURY,

VT -Virtuoso

pianist Claude Frank will return to Middlebury College to

perform at 8 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 15, in the Concert Hall at

the Center for the Arts on South Main Street (Route 30). A

concert with his daughter, violinist Pamela Frank, was

originally scheduled for this time and date but an injury

will prevent her from joining him.

Frank

will perform Bach’s Fantasia and fugue in A minor;

Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat major; Mozart’s Rondo in A

minor; and Beethoven’s Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op. 53

(“Waldstein”).

Frank

is an elder statesman of music having made his debut in 1959

with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. His

career has taken him around the world with the foremost

orchestras and chamber groups. Frank has made his mark at

prestigious festivals and is a renowned teacher at a variety

of universities, including the Yale School of Music and

Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music.

The

Kansas City Evening News noted that Frank has an “ability to

dramatize and colorize, to capsulize the composer’s

complexities.” The El Paso Times declared, “His playing

epitomized Beethoven as it ought to be played.”

His

recordings define his position as a master interpreter of

the piano literature of Beethoven. Frank, who was born in

Germany, fled Nazi Europe for the United States where he

became the first American to record all 32 of Beethoven’s

piano sonatas. The RCA recording and subsequent performances

of the cycle were a milestone of his career. Time magazine

proclaimed it one of the year’s “10 best,” and High Fidelity

and Stereo Review recommended it above other renditions.

Fanfare magazine’s Charles Trimball noted, “I was struck by

several things that set him apart from some of his recorded

colleagues: his extraordinary control of dynamics; …

his scrupulous fidelity to the text; … his very fluent

finger technique; … and his refined sense of sound and

feeling for ideal balances and textural clarity.”

Frank’s

Vermont concert is sponsored by the Middlebury College

Performing Arts Series. Tickets for the performance are $10

for general admission and $8 for seniors. Reservations are

required for a pre-performance dinner at 6:30 p.m. at

Rehearsals Cafe in the Center for the Arts. For tickets or

dinner reservations, call the College box office at

802-443-6433.