Programs

Recital Experiences

Keys Across America: The largest recital tour of all-American piano music for USA250 (2025-2028)

With more than 50 performances scheduled in over 30 states, Keys Across America is Mackenzie’s landmark recital project exploring nearly two centuries of American piano music in honor of the United States’ 250th anniversary. Bringing together familiar works by Copland and Gottschalk, under-the-radar beauty from Amy Beach and Florence Price, and new pieces written especially for Mackenzie by Laura Kaminsky and Avner Dorman, the program offers a vivid musical portrait of America.

Featuring nine composers across generations, Keys Across America invites audiences to hear American music not as a single style, but as a living conversation — one shaped by history, identity, imagination, and discovery.

“This is the most interesting take on the recital program that I have seen in a long time.” — Emanuel Ax

"Melemed's program gathers nearly two centuries of American piano music... He reveals America — the United States — through a cultural vocabulary of symbols and sounds as compelling as they are arresting. His choices are timely, apropos of our current moment in America, turning the usual Copland into something incredibly contemporary and vastly more relevant... Melemed produces something quieter and more revealing — music that expresses grief without giving up hope. His vulnerability — and that of America — feels vividly alive." — Front Row Reviewers

PROGRAM:

AARON COPLAND

“Buckaroo Holiday” from Rodeo

AMY BEACH

Ballade Op.6

LAURA KAMINSKY

Threnody…October 2024

EDWARD MACDOWELL

New England Idyls Op.62

I. An Old Garden

V. In Deep Woods

X. The Joy of Autumn

LOUIS-MOREAU GOTTSCHALK

Union (Concert Paraphrase on National Airs) Op.48

AVNER DORMAN

Lament and Variations

FLORENCE PRICE

Meditation

ARTHUR FOOTE

2 Pieces Op.42

I. Scherzo

II. Etude Arabesque

NED ROREM

Piano Sonata No.1

I. Half Note = 72

II. Adagio (Theme and Variations)

III. Toccata. Clear, Fast, and Hard

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Fantasy and Form (2027-2028)

This program explores music that lives between structure and imagination. Beethoven opens the program with a sonata marked “Quasi una fantasia,” already questioning the boundary between classical design and improvisatory freedom. Pejačević’s Phantasiestücke offer a more intimate response, a succession of concentrated moods and poetic fragments, while Chopin’s Fantaisie in F minor turns fantasy into a sweeping Romantic narrative. After intermission, Griffes’s Fantasy Pieces shift the sound world toward color, atmosphere, and early twentieth-century sensuality, transforming fantasy into something more elusive and pictorial. Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy closes the recital by enlarging the fantasy principle to heroic proportions, transforming a single song-derived idea into a vast, unified musical journey.

PROGRAM:

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN:

Sonata in E-Flat major, Op.27 No.1, “Quasi una fantasia”

DORA PEJAČEVIĆ:

6 Phantasiestücke, Op.17

FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN:

Fantaisie in F minor, Op.49

CHARLES TOMLINSON GRIFFES:

Three Fantasy Pieces Op.6

FRANZ SCHUBERT:

Wanderer Fantasy in C major, D.760 / Op.15

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Juhlat “Celebrations”: Finnish piano music (2027-2028)

“Juhlat” traces a vivid arc through Finnish piano music, from the driving energy of Einar Englund to the lyrical Romanticism of Aarre Merikanto and the luminous contemporary sound worlds of Cecilia Damström and Sebastian Hilli. Jaakko Kuusisto’s Jurmo evokes the stark beauty of the Finnish archipelago, while Damström’s Under Stjärnhimlen turns inward toward a more intimate, nocturnal atmosphere. Hilli’s Mindfalls, heard here in premiere performances, brings the program into the present with fresh textures and imaginative sonic landscapes. The recital culminates in Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Piano Sonata No. 2, Fire Sermon, a work of volcanic intensity and mystical breadth that stands as one of the great statements of Finnish piano literature.

PROGRAM:

EINAR ENGLUND (1916-1999):

Introduzione e Toccata

JAAKKO KUUSISTO (1974-2022):

Jurmo Op.31

AARRE MERIKANTO (1893-1958):

6 Piano Pieces Op. 20

CECILIA DAMSTRÖM (b.1988):

Under Stjärnhimlen (Under the starry sky)

SEBASTIAN HILLI (b.1990):

Mindfalls (premiere performances)

EINOJUHANI RAUTAVAARA (1928-2016):

Piano Sonata No.2 "Fire Sermon”