Duckwall Artist Series: Naomi Niskala, Piano

No Tickets Required

Mozart’s youthfully lighthearted and expressively heartfelt C major sonata (K. 330) and Beethoven’s impassioned and otherworldly final piano sonata (Op. 111) bookend this program. Clara Schumann’s Three Preludes and Fugues give a glimpse into her ability to balance remarkable compositional skill with artistic beauty in expressive lines, colorful harmonies, and subtle textures. Young Cuban-American composer Ivette Herryman Rodriguez gives a nod to her home country through a piece that incorporates a common rhythmic pattern played by the tumbadora drums. Then lace up your running shoes for a boogie-woogie piece by Chinese-Canadian Alexina Louie that directs the pianist to play “sassy, with attitude.” And even though Beethoven was born almost two centuries before Louie, see if you can find the boogie-woogie variation in the final work on the program. A “bold, rigorous, poetic champion” who plays with “solid, intelligent, and caring virtuosity” and “colorful sonority,” pianist NAOMI NISKALA has appeared as soloist and chamber musician in Europe, Russia, and Kosovo, the Middle East, North America, Japan, and Thailand and her performances have been broadcast on BBC Radio, Deutschlandradio, and NPR’s Performance Today. A member of Germany’s Spectrum Concerts Berlin for a decade, Niskala recorded the solo and chamber works of Robert Helps and Ursula Mamlok with the ensemble for the Naxos and Bridge labels, and was an integral part of Spectrum’s work with young musicians in Prizren, Kosovo and the resulting documentary entitled Sehnsucht Musik (Searching for Music). Niskala also released the complete solo piano works of Robert Helps on two discs with Albany Records to high acclaim, with the first volume declared one of the “2007 Best of the year” discs by Classics Today. She is a founding member of the Bardin-Niskala Duo, a non-profit organization and cello-piano duo that explores identity, fights racism, and promotes cultural awareness through the commissioning and performance of works by ALAANA and other under-represented composers. Since 2022 they have commissioned 17 works, performing them in 22 states from New Hampshire to Florida, Texas to Hawai’i. Born to Japanese/Finnish-American parents, Niskala began studying piano at the age of three and was raised in Rochester, New York and later Tokyo, Japan. She holds degrees from the Yale School of Music, Stony Brook University, and the New England Conservatory of Music, and her primary teachers are Claude Frank, Gilbert Kalish, and Patricia Zander. She is currently Professor of Music at Susquehanna University, where she teaches piano, chamber music, and theory and leads a summer chamber music program to Japan. She also teaches at the Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan in the summer, and is Co-Director of the Winterhaven Chamber Music Retreat in New Hampshire during the winter. She enjoys gardening, cooking, and riding horses with her young daughter in rural Pennsylvania.