Rachmaninov and Franck: Lenten Reflections
Saturday, March 15, 2025
7:30PM
Join pianist Irwin Shung, creator of the popular series How to Fall in Love with Classical Music, as he guides listeners through a colorful Lenten recital accompanied by compelling narration and arresting visuals.
Franck's Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue is the very stuff of revelation. Overtly religious, it opens with visions of brooding despair but ultimately transcends to the heights of ecstasy in its final moments.
By contrast, Rachmaninov's virtuosic Ten Preludes, Opus 23 are steeped in lush, romantic worldliness; yet even within this opulent landscape, fantastical apparitions emerge at unexpected moments. The climax of the First Prelude in F-sharp Minor culminates in a cataclysmic and profound loss of faith, while the final movement, in enharmonic G-flat Major, lifts us to the stars.
Ten Preludes, op. 23 Sergei Rachmaninoff
Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue, FWV 21 César Franck
Program
Soloist
Dr. Irwin Shung, whose playing has been praised by State Magazine for its “ease, technique, and musicianship,” has performed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Shung teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Case Western Reserve University, in addition to serving as Artistic Director of The Resonance Project ever since its roots were originally put down in Seattle. Shung maintains an active musical profile both on the West Coast and in Cleveland, where he was recently selected as Height Arts' Artist of the Month. Currently in his third year as President of the Northeast Ohio Music Teachers Association, Shung's leadership over the organization has seen the development of dynamic new programs for hundreds of regional precollegiate music students in Cuyahoga, Geauga, and Lorain Counties.
Shung received his Doctorate of Musical Arts in Piano Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music in January, 2015, where he studied with Dr. Daniel Shapiro. He has also received instruction on piano from distinguished teachers such as Marian Hahn (Peabody Conservatory), Leon Fleisher (Peabody Conservatory), Herbert Stessin (Julliard School), Gabriel Chodos (New England Conservatory), and Victoria Bogdashevskaya (Moscow Conservatory). Awards received include the Pauline Favin Memorial Award from the Peabody Conservatory of Music, and prizes in the Darius Milhaud Competition as well as the Young Artist International Piano Competition.
Appearances in 2023-24 include workshops and concerts in Bellevue, WA; Victoria, British Columbia; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Singapore, and numerous cities in Ohio. His complete recording of the first book of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier is available online, with the second book and the Goldberg Variations currently in-progress. Current projects include the construction of a chamber recording studio at the Artist House in South Euclid, as well Crescendo Cleveland, a music program for pre-college musicians.
