October 19, 2006
Concerts by two pianists offered by UW School of Music
The UW School of Music will offer concerts by two pianists of contrasting style next week. James Wesley Johnson performs at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 25, in Brechemin Auditorium, while Henry Butler will appear at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 26, in Meany Theater.
Johnson will play works by Hosokawa, Stockhausen, Pesson, and Ligeti. The Washington native, who grew up on a research farm, began studying piano at the age of 10, and by age 15 had performed concertos with the Mid-Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra, and Central Washington State College Orchestra. Johnson received a BA at Yale College, where he was a soloist with the Composers Orchestra of Yale and a member of the New Music ensemble “Sheep’s Clothing,” and in 1979 gave one of the first American performances of Ligeti’s “Three Pieces for Two Pianos.”
Johnson has lived in New York City since 1983, where he studied piano with Nina Svetlanova, Robert Goldsand, and William Doppmann and at the Manhattan School of Music. He was the organizer and pianist of the Hardly Any Mozart Festival in Wyoming County, New York, in 1995, and has appeared in duo piano/clarinet recitals in New York City. In recent years Johnson has studied in master classes with Benjamin Kobler at the Stockhausen Course in Kürten, Germany and with Idil Biret in Metz, France, where he performed at the Arsenal on the final concert of the Acanthes 2006 festival. His solo recitals in Seattle have been heard on National Public Radio.
Johnson’s concert is free and open to the public.
Henry Butler’s music is a rich amalgam of jazz, Caribbean, classical, pop, blues and R&B influences, as excitingly eclectic as his New Orleans birthplace. UW School of Music jazz faculty and students will appear with him on stage.
A four-time W.C. Handy “Best Blues Instrumentalist – Piano” award nominee, Butler knows no limitations. Although blinded by glaucoma since birth, Butler is also a world-class photographer, with his work displayed at exhibitions throughout the United States. Playing piano since the age of 6, Butler is a master of musical diversity. Combining the percussive jazz piano playing of McCoy Tyner and the New Orleans style playing of Professor Longhair through his classically-trained wizardry, Butler continues to craft a sound uniquely his own.
Mastering baritone horn, valve trombone, and drums, in addition to the piano, at the Louisiana State School for the Blind in Baton Rouge as a youngster, Butler began formal vocal training in the eleventh grade. He went on to sing German lieder, French and Italian art songs, and operatic arias at Southern and Michigan State Universities, earning a master’s degree in vocal music. He has taught music workshops throughout the country and initiated a number of different educational projects, including a residential jazz camp at Missouri State School for the Blind and a program for blind and visually impaired students at the University of New Orleans.
Mentored by influential jazz clarinetist and Michigan University teacher Alvin Batiste, Butler was encouraged to explore Brazilian, Afro-Cuban and other Caribbean music. With Batiste’s help, he successfully applied for National Endowment for the Arts grants to study with keyboard players George Duke, then with Cannonball Adderly’s Quintet and the late Sir Roland Hanna. He studied with Harold Mabern, pianist for the late Lee Morgan, for a summer and spent a long afternoon studying with Professor Longhair.
Tickets for Henry Butler are $15 ($10 for students and seniors) and are available at the Arts Ticket Office, 206-543-4880. In addition to his concert, Butler will hold a master class for UW School of Music jazz students , at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 25 in Brechemin Auditorium, School of Music. The master class is free and open to the public for observation.
