Axe ’Em, Jacks!
NACOGDOCHES, Texas – Pianist Dr. Daniel Milan will present a solo guest recital featuring works by Franz Josef Haydn, Frédéric Chopin, Dinu Lipatti and Alexander Scriabin when he performs at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 2, in Cole Concert Hall on the Stephen F. Austin State University campus.
Milan describes the program as containing a number of “personal bucket-list pieces.”
“That said, there is some symmetry in the way that the first half and second half of the recital both end in pieces of similar length in F-sharp major,” Milan explains. “What’s more, the program heavily features the compositions of Romanian pianist Dinu Lipatti.”
Although famously known for his outstanding career as a concert pianist and recording artist, Lipatti’s untimely death at age 33 of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in tandem with his fame as a performer overshadowed his prolific compositional output, according to Milan.
Also connected to the F-sharp symmetry is Lipatti’s “Nocturne” in F-sharp minor, following shortly after Chopin’s “Barcarolle” in F-sharp major. Chopin is a composer of whom Lipatti was well known to perform and record. Milan’s program also features a variety of different keyboard sonatas and character pieces. Works include Lipatti’s Sonatina for Left Hand; Haydn’s Sonata in C minor; and Scriabin’s Sonata No. 4 in F-sharp major.
Haydn’s sonata features “some of the first obvious innovations of the new pianoforte instrument that Haydn utilizes in his frequent and distinctive dynamic markings,” according to Milan.
In Sonatina for Left Hand, Lipatti “follows the very traditional fast-slow-fast movement scheme like that found in the Haydn, but with a diverse and even folk-like tonal language that includes both functional and non-functional harmonies and progressions,” Milan explains.
Milan is assistant professor of piano and piano pedagogy at Texas Woman’s University in Denton. He has performed in venues across the world including Maccagno, Italy; the Esterhazy Palace in Eisenstadt, Austria; the University of Transylvania in Brașov, România; the George Enescu Museum in Bucharest, România; and he was featured in a competition showcase recital at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Milan has performed in masterclasses with esteemed artist faculty of the Eastman School of Music, the Juilliard School of Music and Berklee College of Music. During his undergraduate studies at Kent State University, he also opened for the Count Basie Band at Elmhurst College in Illinois with the Kent State Jazz Ensemble.
In addition to his career as a classical musician, Milan is also an independent pop recording artist and composer. Since 2007, he has written, recorded and independently released eight original albums of music: five alternative pop albums, one live acoustic album, and a classical album of original compositions for solo piano, additionally including one work for small orchestra.
Cole Concert Hall is located in the Wright Music Building, 2210 Alumni Drive. Tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students and youth. To purchase tickets, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit the box office website. For additional information, contact the SFA School of Music at (936) 468-4602.