MIDCENTURY/MODERN

Pianist Aron Kallay plays masterworks by Sergei Prokofiev, Grażyna Bacewicz, 

plus three world premieres.

“Besides the Schoenberg and Cage schools of thought, there was this other thing going on in the ‘40s and ‘50s that I quite like. Some composers were looking back to old forms for expression, and seemingly picking up where Liszt and Mahler left off.” -Aron Kallay

On Tuesday, December 16, 2025 at Thayer Hall in the Colburn School, Piano Spheres is pleased to present Aron Kallay performing an evening of works for solo piano.Two major works – infrequently heard – are at the center of this ambitious program. First is Prokofiev’s monumental Seventh Piano Sonata, the second of the composer’s three so-called “war sonatas.” Sketched as early as 1939, the work was completed at the beginning of 1942, having been written during the time Prokofiev was in the Caucasus, to which he had fled from Moscow to escape the approaching German invaders. The second is Grażyna Bacewicz’s Sonata No. 2, written in 1953. A neoromantic type of narrative, derived straight from the tradition of Beethoven and Brahms, combined with sonic radicalism, worthy of the best pieces by Bartók and Prokofiev, but also sensitivity to color, sensual approach to sound – these are characteristics of the work, which has no precedence in the composer’s entire oeuvre.Three new “30 for 30” Piano Spheres commissions will be premiered, including Michael Frazier’s garrapatero aní, inspired by Toru Takemitsu’s orchestral work, A Flock Descends Into the Pentagonal Garden; Zanaida Stewart Robles’s LA River Scenes based on experiences kayaking through Los Angeles; and Brandon Rolle’s Hypnagogia, inspired by Liszt’s Liebestraum No. 3.

PROGRAM: 
  
Michael Fraizer – garrapatero aní (2024)
  World Premiere – Piano Spheres 30 for 30 Commission

Zanaida Stewart Robles – LA River Scenes (2025)
  World Premiere – Piano Spheres 30 for 30 Commission
             
Grażyna Bacewicz – Piano Sonata No. 2 (1953)
  
Brandon Rolle – Hypnagogia (2025)
  World Premiere – Piano Spheres 30 for 30 Commission

Sergei Prokofiev – Piano Sonata No. 7 in B-flat Major, Op. 83 (1942)