Friday, July 11, 2008

Pianist Stewart Goodyear Performs at Lanaudière Festival in Joliette, Québec July 12

Le Festival de Lanaudière announces Stewart Goodyear's performance as solo pianist with Aline Kutan, soprano, and the Orchestre du Festival under the direction of Jean-Marie Zeitouni, conductor on Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 8:00 pm at the Amphithéâtre de Joliette in Joliette, Québec. The concert will have birds as its theme. It will include Stravinski's L'Oiseau de feu (Firebird) Suite and Messiaen's Oiseaux exotiques (Exotic Birds), among others.

Sally Vallongo, a staff writer for The Toledo Blade, wrote an article on the African Canadian pianist entitled “A Life of Music” for the October 21, 2007 edition of the newspaper. “At age 3, he first noticed piano music and had his major 'Aha!' moment, he said earlier this year. By age 4, Goodyear, a Toronto native, was banging away at a toy piano, playing music by ear. (Linus would have been proud — at least until Charlie Brown’s Beethoven-loving friend realized he was outplayed.)

“Just a year later, the little boy whose mother encouraged his keyboard study was leading her to record stores, buying albums by Vladimir Ashkenazy, Vladimir Horowitz, and other world-beating pianists. 'There was just an instinct in me,' Goodyear told the public radio station in Rochester, N.Y., last winter. He simply was drawn to the very best performances. And though there was always music in his home, he held out for his first love”.

After the family purchased a full-size instrument for their prodigy, Goodyear’s mastery of the piano raced along. He took lessons, learned general music as a student at an all-boy Toronto choir school, and generally gained the attention of the international music world. 'Initially, I wanted to be a conductor,' Goodyear said. But by age 14, he was making his first recording — the LeRoy Anderson Concerto and Gershwin’s Second Rhapsody with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra and conductor Erich Kunzel.






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