Duo Pianists Cynthia Raim and David Allen Wehr

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This concert is a special re-stream of a concert that was originally streamed on December 4, 2020, by Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. LiveARTS is very grateful to PCMS for generously granting permission to re-stream this extraordinary event!

LiveARTS and PCMS favorite Cynthia Raim is joined by her longtime piano partner, David Allen Wehr, for a rarely-heard, two-piano, four-hands, all-Rachmaninov program. Lauding the duo’s recording of the Suites for Two Pianos, a Pianoforte critic raved: “Here are two fine artists who sound as if they might have stepped right out of a Russian academy. They allow the composer’s melodies and phrases a natural shape without ever imposing technique on them, with a great feeling of contrast, light and shade.”

PROGRAM

All- Rachmaninov program!

Suite No. 1 for Two Pianos, Op. 5

Fantaisie tableaux Rachmaninov: Duets, Op. 11 [Sel.]

Rachmaninov: Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos, Op. 17

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

CYNTHIA RAIM came to international attention when she was unanimously chosen as the First Prize Winner of the 1979 Clara Haskil International Piano Competition in Switzerland, after winning First Prizes in the 1977 Three Rivers National Piano Competition in Pittsburgh and the J. S. Bach International Piano Competition in Washington DC. She has been acclaimed for her concerto, recital, and chamber music performances throughout the United States and abroad and also won the 1987 Pro Musicis Award, the Festorazzi Award at the Curtis Institute and the "Distinguished Artist Award" from The Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia.

Ms. Raim has appeared in recitals with soprano Benita Valente, cellist David Soyer, violinist Arnold Steinhardt, violist Samuel Rhodes, and the Guarneri String Quartet and has recorded for Gall, Pantheon, and Connoisseur Society, including solo albums of Ravel, Schumann, Brahms, and Schubert and two-piano recordings of Rachmaninoff, Brahms, and Dvořák with David Allen Wehr.

A native of Detroit, where she studied with Mischa Kottler, Ms. Raim studied with Rudolf Serkin and Mieczyslaw Horszowski at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she earned bachelors and masters degrees.

DAVID ALLEN WEHR holds the Jack W. Geltz Distinguished Piano Chair at the Mary Pappert School of Music. His international career was launched when he won the Gold Medal at the 1987 Santander International Piano Competition in Spain. The resulting tours have taken him to over 30 countries in Europe, North and South America, and the Far East, including performances in the world musical capitals of New York, London, Paris, Vienna, Washington, Madrid, and Buenos Aires. Over 1,000 concerts include 13 seasons of touring the United States and Canada for Community Concerts as soloist, pianist with the Sartory Trio, and duo-recital partner with violinist Linda Wang and cellist Zuill Bailey. Wehr has been soloist with the London Symphony, National Symphony, Chautauqua Symphony, Houston Symphony, New Zealand Symphony, and all the major Spanish and Latin American orchestras.

Born in Princeton, New Jersey, Wehr grew up in Boise, Idaho, where his parents, graduates of Westminster Choir College, were ministers of music at the Methodist Cathedral of the Rockies. Piano lessons began on his fourth birthday with his mother and continued with his father. Later teachers were Peggy Erwin, Edward Zolas, and Sequeira Costa. Wehr studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Taos School of Music, the Dartington Summer Music School in England, and holds degrees from the University of Kansas. He coached extensively with Leon Fleisher, Jorge Bolet, and Malcolm Frager. Early in his career, Wehr won the 1975 Kosciuszko Chopin Prize in New York City, the 1983 National Federation of Music Clubs Young Artist Award, and Second Prizes in the 1983 Naumburg International Piano Competition at New York's Carnegie Hall, and the 1986 Kapell Competition at the Kennedy Center.

David Allen Wehr has amassed a large and critically acclaimed discography with Connoisseur Society, Inc., with programs by Chopin, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Mussorgsky, Schumann, Delius, Czerny, Gershwin, Brahms, Griffes, Wagner-Liszt, Dvořák, and Joe Utterback. The complete Beethoven Sonata Cycle has been released in four double-CD albums. His CDs are available through the Mary Pappert School of Music by calling 412.396.6082 and at amazon.com. Since 2007, Wehr has served each summer as Principal Keyboard at the Sunflower Music Festival in Topeka, Kansas and the Buzzards Bay Musicfest in Marion, Massachusetts.

Wehr was first associated with Duquesne from 1991–1994, when the Sartory Trio was chamber ensemble-in-residence, and his current tenure began in 2001, when he was named the first Hillman Distinguished Chair.