Students, guest artist dazzle audience at piano concert

Kellie Bowen, Arts & Entertainment editor

Three Linfield students performed pieces on the piano at Friday’s Keyboard Kapers concert.

There was a guest appearance in the concert who led a piano masterclass earlier in the week and performed three solo songs. The ending duet challenged the audience’s ears.

Ehren Cahill, ’18, opened the show with “Prelude No. 1” by George Gershwin: a jazzy, but smooth modern piece.

Sophia Reinhardt played three parts from Alexander Tcherepnin’s “Ten Bagatelles,” No. 2 in D Minor, No. 7 in E-flat Major and No. 8 in A-flat Major. This was a collection of dissonant, haunting pieces.

Aya Okawauchi performed “Waltz in C-sharp Minor, Op. 64 No. 2” by Frederic Chopin

Each of the student performers played with passion. The songs were smooth and effortless. None of the performers appeared to have stage fright. As they walked away from the piano, their faces beamed with pride and relief.

Albert Kim, a music professor at Linfield, introduced his friend and colleague, Futaba Niekawa, who played “Three Mazurkas, Op. 59” by Frederic Chopin, “Sonata in E Major, Op. 109” by Beethoven, and “Après une Lecture du Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata” by Franz Liszt.

Niekawa is a visiting assistant professor of music at Indiana University.

The final pieces were two selected movements from Oliver Messiaen’s Sisions de l’Amen, “I Amen de la Creation” and “VII Amen de la Consommation,” performed by Kim and Niekawa as a duet.

The audience cringed at the harsh, clashing songs. In a way, the song resembled church bells, but the longer the pieces lasted the more dissonant the sounds were. Although, the performance of the duet was clean and untroublesome.