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When the piano plays a poem New York
Thalia Theatre, Symphony Space
05/28/2025 -
Qasim Naqvi: America
John Musto: Habanera
Jessica Meyer: Halcyon Skies
Charles Coleman: To be Beautiful
Sebastian Currier: 23 Variations on America
Aaron Jay Kernis: Epilog: End of the Dream
Justin Dello Joio: Playing With Fire
Melinda Wagner: Swinging in My Yard (an American Reverie)
David Sanford: 3 Places in America (less than a mile from each other)
Robert Sirota: 2 Variations: Alabaster Cities & God mend thine every flaw [1]
Paul Moravec: America, the Work In Progress [2]
Trevor Weston: A Fantasy on America [3]
Scott Ordway: You Are Welcome Here
Wang Jie: Under the Same Flag
Victoria Bond: From Sea to Shining Sea
Min Kwon (Pianist, Collator-Inspirer of “America/Beautiful”), Jiayan Sun [1], Reed Tetzloff [2], Carl Bolleia [3] (Pianists)
K. L. Bates/M. Kwon (© Schlesinger Library, Harvard University)
“I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear.”
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
“The way to write American music is simple. All you have to do is be an American and then write any kind of music you wish.”
Virgil Thomson
With my imaginary druthers, I’d choose America the Beautiful as second choice for our National Anthem. (The first would be Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land, but these days, the title sounds like chatter among Trump’s Cabinet.)
The present God Bless America is not only a heretical command to the Divinity, but it honors both slave‑owners and slave-bounty-hunters. Though this isn’t quite at the bottom. The Hungarian National Anthem has the gloomiest, most hopeless aura since Dante visited the Inferno.
Back to America the Beautiful. Not only was it written by the post-Transcendentalist Katherine Lee Bates. But it was literally inspired by her first view of Pike’s Peak. And tonight, the song was wide‑ranging inspiration for American pianist Min Kwon and 15 famed composers.
She was born in Korea but one who was transported from the American dream to achieve a rare reality as one of the most dynamic international artists. The story behind tonight’s concert was even more unbelievable. Ms Kwon is both pianist and friend to a host of modern musicians. So, with her personal strength–as artist and citizen–she contacted no less than 76 American composers to write–without any restrictions–variations on Samuel Ward’s tune, composed in 1910, about three decades after Ms Bate’s celebrated poem.
Tonight, we heard music that had nothing in common with the usual 19th Century variations, except when they took over that heritage. Sebastian Currier, for instance, gave a modern free‑wheeling “Diabelli‑style” 23 Variations. John Musto’s Habernara was like an homage to America’s first great composer, Louis Gottschalk.
Then we had the more political variations, Qasim Naqvi gave us a harsh message to the program, explaining his melody was “shrouded in ... dread and ... fear of “another four years of Donald Trump.”
Nor did Aaron Jay Kernis ignore present problems with Epilog: End of the Dream. This was echoed by Jessica Meyer, who “tried to ignore the news” while vacationing, her America the Beautiful embossed with piano wind‑chimes.
How did Ms Kwon handle these first works? She is, of course a virtuoso. Here, though, she had the triple‑chore of playing piano tones simultaneously with a poem/picture and fifteen interpretations of these pictures. Thus, even in the simplest sections (a melodic nostalgic Swinging in My Yard by Melinda Wagner), her playing had a tension, a notion that we had a painting behind the notes.
Three other excellent pianists played pieces by Robert Sirota, Trevor Weston and Paul Moravec. Jiayan Sun and Carl Bolleia were the more than creditable exponents.
But Reed Tetzloff had the honor to perform, what I considered the most moving work of the evening. This America, the Work in Progress started almost as a clock‑ticking improvisation, going into a toccata, and a remarkable ending, where the eponymous melody was fragmented, like a broken mirror. And then one note to signal ... the end.
Ms Kwon had further work. Victoria Bond produced her usual beautifully crafted variations. (But did she really need to offer a jeux of beginning and ending “From C to shining C”?) Wang Jie gave an optimistic paean to America’s melting pot with a fiery work of staccato and legato changes. Like virtually all the other composers, she signified that the American story is “unfinished.”
M. Kwon and Composers (© Samuel A. Dog)
Nor is Min Kwon’s project finished. These fifteen works, from the Gershwin-styled Dello Joio Playing With Fire to Moravec’s unsettling Work in Progress leaves 61 other composers ready for her dynamic execution. Like waiting for new America the Beautiful we shall happily wait for this incarnation.
Harry Rolnick
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