2008 Woodie Awards
Piano professor revisits classics for Friday's recital at WAC
Niketa Reed
Issue date: 4/2/08 Section: Life & Style
Six-time classical recording artist and UA piano professor Jura Margulis will perform his annual recital 7 p.m. Friday in the Baum Walker Hall at the Walton Arts Center.
The recital will feature the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Alban Berg, and Johannes Brahms.
"I try to create a bridge between the listener and me," Margulis said. "Very often people are hesitant to go to a classical concert because they think they don't understand enough. But I can assure them, and there's actually research, that people do understand much more than they believe or think of music because, like language, music has a correspondent framework in our mind that makes us able to understand it even if we had no formal training at all. We just have to be open to it."
Margulis is a world-renown pianist who has worked with a host of orchestras in his classical music entourage over the years, including the Russian National Orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under Charles Dutoit, the Südwestrundfunk Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Venezuela, the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Prague Symphony Orchestra, according to the biography on his personal Web site.
Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and raised in a musical family in Freiburg, Germany, his mother was his first piano teacher and his father helped him develop his skill.
"My father is a musician, my grandfather is a musician and my mother is a musician. So definitely, before I spoke, I heard music in our house. I slept under the piano as my father would play," Margulis said "My father and my family, in a sense, are, by all means, what you would consider old-school. And for that matter, the belief that the children are supposed to take the traits of the parents was not even questioned, so it didn't seem odd for my father to want me to become a pianist.
"In the olden days, many of the great musicians came from musical families. It was natural for them to pick it up in their family. I mean, not only Bach, Mozart and the very greats, but most performers of today..." said Margulis.
The recital will feature the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Alban Berg, and Johannes Brahms.
"I try to create a bridge between the listener and me," Margulis said. "Very often people are hesitant to go to a classical concert because they think they don't understand enough. But I can assure them, and there's actually research, that people do understand much more than they believe or think of music because, like language, music has a correspondent framework in our mind that makes us able to understand it even if we had no formal training at all. We just have to be open to it."
Margulis is a world-renown pianist who has worked with a host of orchestras in his classical music entourage over the years, including the Russian National Orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under Charles Dutoit, the Südwestrundfunk Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Venezuela, the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Prague Symphony Orchestra, according to the biography on his personal Web site.
Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and raised in a musical family in Freiburg, Germany, his mother was his first piano teacher and his father helped him develop his skill.
"My father is a musician, my grandfather is a musician and my mother is a musician. So definitely, before I spoke, I heard music in our house. I slept under the piano as my father would play," Margulis said "My father and my family, in a sense, are, by all means, what you would consider old-school. And for that matter, the belief that the children are supposed to take the traits of the parents was not even questioned, so it didn't seem odd for my father to want me to become a pianist.
"In the olden days, many of the great musicians came from musical families. It was natural for them to pick it up in their family. I mean, not only Bach, Mozart and the very greats, but most performers of today..." said Margulis.
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