Louise Bessette to Perform “The Concord Sonata” at 51 Walden, September 8.

As part of the year-long celebration of the 250th anniversary of the fight at the Old North Bridge, Canadian pianist Louise Bessette will give a lecture and then perform The Concord Sonata by Charles Ives at The Performing Arts Center at 51 Walden on Sunday, September 8 at 2 p.m. Admission will be free.

She is recording it in Montreal this fall and drove to Concord last summer to “soak up the culture.” “She spontaneously popped into 51 Walden, which is how I met her. Louise said it would be a dream to perform this famous piece in Concord.” (Carole Wayland, Director, 51 Walden).

Louise Bessette will also give a brief lecture about the piece. For more information about her, please visit her website:  http://www.louisebessette.com/english/

The Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass., 1840–60 (commonly known as The Concord Sonata) was composed by Charles Ives in 1915. It is one of Ives’ best-known and most highly regarded pieces. The sonata’s four movements represent figures associated with transcendentalism: Emerson, Hawthorne, The Alcotts, and Thoreau. The opening bars of Beethoven’s Symphony.

Composer Charles Ives   was born in Danbury Connecticut in 1874 where his father was a band conductor. Ives was an actuary and businessman as well as a prolific composer known for experimental techniques including polytonality, polyrhythm, tone clusters, and dissonance. His earlier works include The Unanswered Question, Three Places in New England, and the Holiday Symphony.

About Louise Bessette…

Ms. Bessette, born in Montreal in 1959, trained and teaches at Conservatoire de musique du Quebec a Montreal (CMQM). She has pursued an outstanding career, characterized by the excellence of her performances, earning many laudatory reviews. In 2019, she received the Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award in Classical Music from the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards, Canada’s highest honor in the performing arts. In 2016, the University of Western Ontario conferred a degree of Doctor of Music, honoris causa to celebrate her international career. Her other multiple awards include: first prizes at the Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition (1981), the Concours international de musique contemporaine (Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1986), and the international Gaudeamus Competition (Rotterdam, 1989), and the Prix Québec-Flandre (1991). She is a member of the Order of Canada (2001), an Officer of the Ordre national du Québec (2005) and Canadian Music Centre Ambassador (2009).

As a pianist with an eclectic repertoire, eager to promote exchanges with other art forms, Ms. Bessette recorded works by Alkan and Grieg for a film soundtrack. In 2021, she received her tenth Opus Prize from the Conseil québécois de la musique in 2021. In 2015, she was listed as one of Canada’s top 25 pianists by CBC Music. She will be performing and recording The Concord Sonata in Montreal later this fall.