Piano by Nature’s 19th Season marks the beginning of a two-year celebration of our concert series—and we couldn’t be more excited! Wooohoo! This celebration honors the past, looks toward the future, and offers a great big thank-you to the present: to the audiences, musicians, friends, and supporters who have allowed PBN to thrive for 19 years and counting. We want to celebrate what we’ve built together, and we want to do it with you.

For these anniversary years, we’re thrilled to bring back some of our favorite artists—musicians who continue to grow, deepen their artistry, communicate with ever-greater clarity, and create reverberations that reach their audiences on the deepest levels of listening. These are the artists who have resonated with all of us and left us wanting more.

In physics, resonance is a beautiful phenomenon where one object vibrates at the same frequency as another, and then the second object vibrates in response. Strike one tuning fork, and the sound waves traveling through the air can cause another tuning fork to reverberate at the same note. Resonance between people functions much the same way, and is a deep, unspoken alignment of emotions, energy, or brain activity. Our goal is to bring everyone on stage and in the audience “in tune”—to create a shared experience of active listening, where we are not simply hearing music, but engaging with it together. When that happens, the music will create deeper connections: between musician and listener, between listener and listener, and within ourselves.

And this season explores many different kinds of resonance through an extraordinary variety of styles, sounds, timbres, instruments, harmonies, and composers. We live in a time when people are spending more and more time saying things—but not always listening, pondering, or truly absorbing what is being said. It is fundamental to human nature to want to be heard and to communicate, even though the pace of our modern lives can make focus and communication difficult. We are surrounded by information, notifications, conversations, responsibilities, and an endless stream of things putting demands on us, and too often, we skim the surface rather than taking the time to pause, reflect, and really “chew” on an idea.

PBN wants to offer you an alternative. Not just concerts, but a place to connect with music and the people performing it. A place to revel in quiet. A place to listen deeply and resonate with the people around you. A place to relax and enjoy yourself—but also a place to go a little deeper. To notice something that might otherwise slip past in the everydayness of our busy lives.

And our beloved Hand House continues to be the perfect place for these kinds of intimate and meaningful interactions. Our Season 19 concerts will offer a rich palette of musical colors and experiences, from familiar faces like Ethan Uslan and Mark Shilansky and his incredible cohorts, to new friends that we are thrilled to introduce, including Sophia Vastek, Grace O’Connell, and Alexander Friedman. And then there is Soluna, a super-group of area musicians embarking on a new and thrilling venture with the incredible pianist Diana Fanning.

Each concert offers its own opportunity to listen, discover, connect, and resonate.

Thank you for believing in PBN and supporting us for 19 wonderful years. We have so much more to give—and it all begins on October 3rd. Let the celebration begin!

And see you at the Hand House—with your ears on resonate!

Piano by Nature Season 19 Concerts

All of the Season 19 concerts will be held at the Historic Hand House unless otherwise noted.

ALIGHT!
Pianist/Composer Sophia Vastek
Saturday, October 3rd at 7PM
Sunday, October 4th at 3PM

“Vastek artfully creates a space that is vulnerable, exquisitely performed, and sensitive…” – I Care If You Listen

For Sova — the moniker of New York-based pianist/composer Sophia Vastek — the piano has always been home. A second generation pianist, she holds a deep reverence for her history, coupled with an exploratory ear, and moves quietly between musical worlds. Described as performing with “passion and profound tenderness” (Second Inversion) and “serene strokes and lyrical beauty” (Brooklyn Rail), her intuitive playing style has evolved into a dynamic, cinematic sound that blends neoclassical, ambient, and jazz sensibilities.

APPROACHING SOLSTICE
SOLUNA with pianist Diana Fanning
Saturday, December 5th at 7PM
Sunday, December 6th at 3PM

The newly formed North Country music collaborative SOLUNA, as the name implies with its combination of “sun” and “moon,” thrives on the balance and unity of differences. Soluna performs music from Baroque to avant-garde in diverse instrumental combinations, and is actively committed to outreach presentations designed to attract new audiences. Middlebury College Guest Artist Diana Fanning will join Janice Kyle, oboe, Janine Scherline, clarinet, and Patricia McCarty, viola, in a delightfully mixed program ranging from Mozart to Modern.

BRASS UNBOUND
Grace O’Connell, trumpet and Alex Friedman, tuba
Saturday, February 13th at 7PM
Sunday, February 14th at 3PM

Grace O’Connell is a musician with equal passions for solo and orchestral playing, chamber music, and teaching. She has performed with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and The Knights, and is a frequent addition to orchestral trumpet sections in the Nashville Symphony, Huntsville Symphony Orchestra, Greenwich Symphony, Princeton Symphony Orchestra, and others. Always a dynamic soloist, Grace is an active recitalist and competitor in national and international competitions. Most recently, she was named the first-place winner of the Roger Voisin Memorial Trumpet Competition and also the International Trumpet Guild Solo Performance Division, among many others. She recently completed a two-year fellowship as a member of Ensemble Connect, a program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. This unique program prepares extraordinary young professional classical musicians for careers that combine musical excellence with teaching, community engagement, advocacy, entrepreneurship, and leadership. As part of this extraordinary fellowship with Ensemble Connect, Grace taught at PS 130 The Parkside School in Brooklyn.

Alex Friedman is a New York City-based tubist active in orchestral and chamber music. As an orchestral musician, Alex has performed with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, and New World Symphony in Miami Beach, FL. In 2025, he was selected to perform with the NextGen Symphony Orchestra in Beijing, China, where he joined orchestral musicians from around the world for a two-week symposium celebrating the global impact of orchestral music on society and culture. In addition to his orchestral pursuits, Alex is an active chamber musician. He is a founding member of the Elm City Brass, a brass quintet dedicated to sharing music with the greater Connecticut area through education and community outreach. In 2025, Elm City Brass was awarded a fellowship at Yale School of Music’s Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. In addition, the ensemble has performed several outreach recitals and educational performances throughout New England. Alex holds degrees from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and the Yale School of Music, where he studied with David Kirk and Carol Jantsch, respectively.

THE SIDEMAN COMETH:
Mark Shilansky’s OnWeGo Jazz Collective
Saturday, April 10th at 7PM
Sunday, April 11th at 3PM

Pianist Mark Shilansky’s OnWeGo Jazz Collective was formed in 2021and features four gob-smackingly incredible artists—Sara Caswell, David Thorne Scott, Eric Byers, and Mark Shilansky. Their sound offers a genre-bending mix of jazz, pop, Americana, and world music, and their four members absolutely delight in emphasizing spontaneous and conversational interaction along with a strong focus on tight vocal harmonies.

Mark has appeared on the PBN stage several times, each with new members or new groups—initially brought to us by The Mill’s Taylor Haskins (thank you, Taylor!). And although Mark is an incredible soloist with a performance degree from UNH and enviable apprenticeships with artists like Clark Terry, Phil Woods, and Jimmy Heath, he continually chooses to combine his talents with others—and always with people just as outstanding as himself. Throughout this creative career as a pianist and composer of his own material, Mark has been a consistent presence and proudly refers to himself as a ‘sideman’. And one of the outstanding and notable characteristics of associating musically with Mark is the absolute fluid transfer of leadership between the members of all of his bands – each taking a turn steering the ‘ship’ while the others happily share in the sideman role.

A tenure throughout much of the 90’s as a member of the Luciana Souza quintet led to his almost ubiquitous presence as an accompanist of vocalists, such as Lisa Thorson, The New York Voices, Kris Adams, Carolyn Leonhart, Rebecca Parris, and Patrice Williamson (for whom he has written copious arrangements, and produced her CD, Free to Dream). Mark plays piano and contributed an original composition “All in My Heart,” to NYvoices soprano Kim Nazarian’s debut solo CD, “Some Morning.” He played piano and contributed arrangements and an original song, “I have found”, on the debut release by rising star vocalist Robin McKelle, Never Let Me Go. Mark is also a strong presence on vocalist Chris Humphrey’s debut CD “Nothin’ But Blue Skies,” featuring Martin Wind (bass) and Matt Wilson (drums).

PBN’s Fifth Annual CODA Concert
A Celebration of Exceptional North Country Student Musicians & Their Teachers
Sunday, May 16th at 3PM

One of the highlights of the PBN season — for us and for the community — is the annual CODA Concert. This unique event features school music students from all over the region. Though these incredible students range widely in age and level of achievement, they each bring something special to our stage: a dedication to their own growth as musicians, a passion for musical expression, a joy in reaching their own personal mountaintop, and an appreciation for the care and support this community of music teachers — in both school and private-studio settings — extends every day. The concerts have showcased a wide array of musical genres, instrumentation, voice types, and presentation styles, with performers ranging from elementary school through college (and even the occasional parent). No two concerts are ever the same!

We’re proud to have created a platform for student musicians who find a certain kind of resonance in coming together to share music they’ve so diligently prepared, often in isolation. We admire their effort, their openness to feedback, their willingness to problem-solve and think creatively, along with the great care and attention to detail they bring to their music each day. There is much to celebrate, and we’re excited to welcome a new class of CODA students to the 2026-2027 series!

The Return of ETHAN USLAN:
Virtuoso Ragtime & Swing Pianist
Saturday, June 5th at 7PM
Sunday, June 6th at 3PM

PBN is beyond-thrilled to welcome back our favorite ragtime piano player Ethan Uslan. When we first looked for the ‘perfect’  pianist for the job it took mere seconds to know that Ethan was not just a pianist with formidable chops, but someone who covers all of the bases of a great artist. In addition to scalding piano riffs and lickety-split tempo choices, his programs follow a storyline where he incorporates a larger tight-knit form that unites the elements of the different pieces to each other. Ethan is definitely a master craftsman at creating his unique programs, and seems to have an almost savant understanding of what his audience wants to know and hear before he arrives. And while his humor knows no bounds, he is always still able to keep the witticisms at a respectable distance from the foundational heart of the music and its history. And within this created universe he then lets loose his fiery and virtuosic piano playing. We already cannot wait to hear what he will whip-up for the PBN audiences in June—it will most certainly be a barn-burning season-ender to remember!

Ethan Uslan currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he presents his music and storytelling on his very own podcast—The Carolina Shout. His concerts are filled with passion, humor, virtuosity, and a deep love for America’s rich musical past. His vast repertoire includes original arrangements of Civil-War era songs, African-American Spirituals, New Orleans Jazz, 1920s Charlestons, blues, stomps, Harlem stride piano, swing, Cuban rumbas, and jazzed-up versions of classical masterpieces.