February 17 at Wexner Heritage Village, 1151 College Ave., Columbus, OH 43209
February 18 on Ohio State Campus, Timashev Family Music Building, 1900 College Road North, Columbus, OH 43210
The program introduces music by composers whose Jewish identity sealed their fate as musicians and as human beings in the period surrounding the two world wars. The colorful, imaginative soundscape these composers created was influenced by other composers they were personally associated with, such as Debussy and Berg, by their geographical journeys to Eastern, Western Europe and Palestine, and ultimately by the turbulent circumstances of their time- a monumental chapter in history. Their compositions bear witness to their rich life experiences, encompassing great stylistic diversity and a vast range of emotions
Praised by the New York Times for her “passionate and insightful” playing, Renana Gutman has performed across four continents as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and collaborative artist. She played at venues like The Louvre Museum, Grenoble Museum (France), Carnegie Recital Hall, People’s Symphony Concerts, Merkin Hall (New York), St. Petersburg’s Philharmonia (Russia), Stresa Music Festival (Italy), Ravinia Rising Stars (Chicago), Jordan Hall, Gardner Museum (Boston), Herbst Theatre (St. Francisco), Menuhin Hall (UK), UNISA (South Africa), Marlboro (VT), and National Gallery, Phillips Collection, and Freer Gallery (Washington DC). Her performances are heard frequently on WQXR Young Artists Showcase, NY, WFMT Dame Myra Hess, Chicago, and MPR in Performances Today, MN.
Professor Gutman is on the piano faculty of Boston’s Longy School of Music of Bard College. She had previously been on the piano faculty of the Yehudi Menuhin Music School in the UK, and of Bard Pre-College and The 92nd Street Y in NY.
A native of Israel, Renana started playing at the age of six, and soon after, garnered multiple awards and honors. She received scholarships from the America Israel Cultural Foundation, and the Jewish Foundation for the Education of Women. She completed her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees at Mannes College of Music, NY, where she studied with Richard Goode. In Israel, her teachers were pianists Natasha Tadson, Viktor Derevianko, and the Israeli composer Arie Shapira.
The program is free and open to the public.
Presented by the Melton Center for Jewish Studies and Ohio State's School of Music.
Supported by the Thomas and Diann Mann Symposium fund.