On the weekend of April 12th and 13th join Piano by Nature for an exciting and intriguing set of ragtime concerts from New Zealand pianist Nicola Melville, who has been described as “having an original and intelligent musical mind” (Waikato Times), “a marvelous pianist who plays with splashy color but also exquisite tone and nuance” (American Record Guide), and “the sort of advocate any composer would love” (Dominion Post). It promises to be a weekend filled with rich history and vibrant ragtime music, which is a distinctly African American art form born in the late 1800s, and one which heralded both jazz and rock and roll in its unique use of syncopated ‘ragged’ rhythms. Come and hear a plethora of historic and contemporary works, covering over a hundred years of diverse styles and compositions on an incredible variety of subjects such as maple leaves, sunflowers, sleepwalking, and more. Hear lively piano rags by composers Scott Joplin, James Scott, Claude Debussy, William Albright, and others, and then come to meet Ms. Melville after both concerts.

On Saturday, April 12th PBN will offer an incredible and unique live experience that includes food, drink, history, period-dress, and music all wrapped up in one glorious evening. And if you would prefer to have just the music part, we are offering that too.

For the Saturday April 12th Titanic Fundraiser we ask that attendees dress in period costume from 1912, with a prize for most authentic costume or character from the HMS Titanic. If you cannot find the right period clothes, all is good with simple black-tie elegance. The event kicks off at 5PM with a menu featuring gorgeous hors d’oeuvres from Fork and Knife Catering of Plattsburgh, wine, a raffle, dessert, and of course, an amazing PBN concert. This fundraiser is a one-day event on Saturday, April 12th only, so get your tickets early and get ready to set sail for an unforgettable experience!

The party starts at 5PM and the concert at 7:00 PM. Tickets are $100 per person and include 2 drink tickets

On Sunday, April 13th we will offer our traditional 3PM Matinee, including a sumptuous reception afterwards and a meet-and-greet with our wonderful artist.

On Sunday, doors will open 30 minutes before the performance, and we recommend arriving early to avoid check-in lines. For that performance PBN requests a donation of $20 per concert ticket; $5 for children aged 15 and under. Please call or email if you’d like to volunteer and we’ll offer free admission; seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

There is something for everyone. Both concerts promise to be absolutely stunning and will feature New Zealand pianist Nicola Melville playing ragtime music spanning over a century, beginning with works from the late 1800s.

In an effort to improve ticketing and reservations, we have recently started using eventbrite.com where you will have the option of purchasing tickets and reserving your preferred seats ahead of time. Make your reservations here for eventbrite.com. You can also still reserve your spot via email at pianobynature@gmail.com or by phone at 518-962-8899 if that is preferable. We cannot wait for this one—see you there!

OUR ARTIST

Pianist Nicola Melville’s live performances and recordings have been broadcast on Canadian, U.S., New Zealand, South African, and Chinese radio, and she has been involved in numerous interdisciplinary projects with dancers, filmmakers, and visual artists. Nicola won both the National Concerto Competition and the Auckland Star Concerto Competition while in New Zealand, and has been a prizewinner in several competitions in the U.S., including being the winner of the SAI Concerto Competition at the Chautauqua Music Festival. Concerts include appearances in Chile, New Zealand, the UK, and around the U.S. She has collaborated with members of the Kronos, PUBLIQuartet, and JACK quartets, and with members of the Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Minnesota, and Saint Paul Chamber orchestras.

Nicola has degrees from the Victoria University School of Music, Wellington, and the Eastman School of Music. While at Eastman, Nicola was awarded the Lizzie T. Mason prize for Outstanding Graduate Pianist, and the prestigious Performer’s Certificate. She has won grants from such organizations as Meet the Composer, Creative New Zealand, the Argosy Fund for Contemporary Music, and the Jerome Program for the commissioning, performing, and recording of new and existing works, and has recorded for the Innova and Equilibrium labels, She is Co-Chair of the piano program at the Chautauqua Music Festival, New York, and is pianist for the Twin Cities contemporary music group, Zeitgeist, with whom she tours regularly. Nicola has been professor of music at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota since 2004.

THE HISTORICAL SETTING

For our April concerts, we wanted to present music which linked historically with the fundraiser. We feel that pairing the Titanic theme of 1912 with the hundred year-plus ragtime perspective is an opportunity to focus on a specific time period within a larger musical overview, which will provide context and connections for both.

Why the Titanic theme? PBN presents music from a very wide range of eras, going back as far as the Renaissance and including works written almost yesterday—a span of over 500 years. We feel our goal is always to bring the music to ‘life’ when played in the Hand House’s gorgeous parlor. And to do this, we try to put each work into context through interpretation and also historical presentation, while also enjoying the beautiful 19th-Century space of the Hand House and the modern-day conveniences of lights, plumbing, indoor heating, etc.

Music is often representative of the gamut of human emotion, and we find that the modern mythology of the Titanic includes incredible human stories of tragedy, bravery, opulence, romance, and survival. And for the first time in history, these stories were documented in photographs that were distributed worldwide. It is a historical story that still fascinates millions all over the world and which continues to generate new stories into the 21st-Century.

Here is a wonderful article from The Washington Post which explains the enduring hold this historical event still holds on us all.

And here is a link from The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute that includes several incredible historical photos of both the ship and crew.

For our PBN fundraiser, we do not want to celebrate the disaster, but to connect to the era and the people within it, adding music from that era to bring us all a bit closer to delving into the period in which both the music and the tragedy occurred. And we ask our audience, when choosing a costume, to choose clothing that will be period-style with nothing unbefitting of good taste. Or simply go with black tie dress. Ideally, we want to create an evening harkening to the 1912 era—with its celebration of human ingenuity and the high art of the Industrial Age.

“This unfortunate tragedy has set the stage for the Titanic to become an interesting, widespread focal point for historical study and remembrance. With all the diverse cabin classes and various crew positions and skills, the ship was a microcosm of early 20th century society.” —“History of Fashion: The Titanic” by Tom Kruse at Medium.com

“In many ways, Titanic was a product of established concepts of class and behavior that were still rigidly adhered to. Her time was one of major transition, when old traditions and new ideas coexisted, if not always comfortably. In fact, far from being a Golden Age of consistency and stability, the pre-First World War period was a time of technological, social and cultural upheaval”. This cultural and social friction is embodied by the placing such a diverse grouping of individuals together within such a confined space for the duration of the trip.

This confluence of factors have memorialized and engrained the Titanic so strongly in Western cultural memory and the Gilded Age story of the vessel Titanic lies both a fascinating epic of maritime history and a morality play. This unfortunate tragedy has set the stage for the Titanic to become an interesting, widespread focal point for historical study and remembrance.” —Washington Post

RAGTIME MUSIC

Here are a couple of wonderful articles about the history of Ragtime for your review as well:

• Library of Congress’s History of Ragtime
• A short explanation from Albany Records by William Bolcom of how he and other ‘modern’ composers in 1967 ‘discovered’ ragtime music.

Piano By Nature’s programs are made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrant program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts. We are also supported by the Essex County Arts Council’s Cultural Assistance Program Grant with funding provided by Essex County. And we’d also like to thank our many patrons and donors for their generous contributions over the past 16 years—you are keeping live music ‘alive’ in the North Country!