By Anne W. Semmes
On this Friday evening will be the third classical music concert created to engage with the audience as designed and presented by Stefano Miceli, the award-winning internationally known pianist, conductor, and professor, who resides in Greenwich. Miceli’s Greenwich Concert Series “Music & Conversations” that debuted last November takes place in the “intimate space” of the partnering Greenwich Arts Council on Greenwich Avenue. Featured will be a voice and piano duet of the “Histoire du Tango” with Miceli on piano accompanied by mezzosoprano Monika Krajewska from Poland.
Krajewska has received praise for her “rich and strong tone that expresses not only beauty, but a luminous sense of peace with comfort.” The two artists will play “elegant tango arias and masterpieces from the 1800-1900 musical repertoire.” And Miceli, he says, “will help the audience to interact and comprehend the meaning behind the works.” The evening starts at 7 p.m. with a “cocktail and finger food” reception followed by the concert from 8 to 9 p.m. Ticket cost is $40.
This Miceli-designed musical venue is striking a chord with Greenwich audiences with sold-out performances, with some 80 people attending the debut November concert with Miceli at piano playing the “Great Romantics” and the beginnings of cinema music. The February concert was cancelled due to a snowstorm. The March concert featured a violin-piano duet with Miceli and La Scala Philharmonic violinist Francesca Boral performing “paraphrases and transcriptions.”
Miceli is seeing the audience reaction to his new venue as “phenomenal to be honest,” he says. “I’m producing by myself this concert series. So, it’s just because I’m in Greenwich, I’m a Greenwich artist. And a few people know me.”
More than a few! Concert attendees are coming from the New York metropolitan area to New Haven, as well as from Miceli’s hometown of Greenwich, including First Selectman Fred Camillo. Miceli has performed and conducted in Carnegie Hall, and in cities all over the world. He presently teaches at Adelphi University (AU) in New York and is Music Director of the AU Symphony Orchestra.
A native of Naples, Italy, where he studied at the Naples Conservatory of Music, Miceli earned three doctorates there in piano performance, composition, and orchestra conducting. He made his home in Bergamo, Italy, “a city like Greenwich close to Milan,” he says, “as Greenwich is to New York.” Moving to New York seven years ago, he then chose to move to Greenwich five years ago. “I like the lifestyle in Greenwich,” he says, “I like the community.”
His idea for the Concert Series “Music & Conversations” came to him spontaneously he says. “As an international artist when you go around the world on the biggest stages you don’t talk with the audiences. So, from the stage you have a different perspective of the audience. So, in a certain moment, I felt that this concert hall [at the Greenwich Arts Council] is quite intimate. So, there’s a way to interact with the audience in some background history of the repertoire that I’m going to perform, some exotic stories from composers or focusing on their style of writing, something that is quite accessible even to non-musicians.
“So, that was my idea and my wish to know the audience much better and to be closer to what they’re going to experience. You’re sharing some of the knowledge of the music that is going to be played.” Yes, with beforehand a little Italian wine from Val’s Wine and Liquors and finger food from Il Pastaficio in Cos Cob.
Miceli shares that he had presented a form of these “Music & Conversations” at the Harvard Club in New York over a period of years, until the pandemic closed the Club doors.
In 2011, Miceli was honored by being appointed a Steinway Artist, joining the likes of Daniel Barenboim and many others. “We only play on Steinways,” he tells. “We become testimonials of the Steinway piano around the world.” His piano prowess can be heard as recorded along with other Steinway Artists on the newest Steinway Spirio model (from Steinway & Sons Greenwich) at the Greenwich Arts Council concert hall,
Two years ago, in the midst of the pandemic, Miceli came up with another idea, the Greenwich Piano Institute. “It’s a private Institute,” he shares, “So, since I have many international students in piano, they travel to get my master classes and lessons. I prepare them for international competitions around the world.” Besides locally, his students range from Romania, France, or Italy. He is coaching them in his Greenwich home, “in studios, and even at the Greenwich Arts Council.”
On May 6, the fifth program in his “Music & Conversations” concert series, Miceli will feature “music and emotions.” Miceli will be the artist with Steve Everett, provost of CUNY University, as composer and scientist. “With the interaction with Steve, it’s actually a way to invite the audience to treat the sound emotionally as separated by the brain perception. It’s very interesting – we’ve done this on other occasions, not only in New York.”
For the kickoff in October of the second Greenwich Concert Series of “Music & Conversations, Miceli is seeing his vision expanding with guest artists and repertoire, and in programming that will involve younger generations. His audience now he says ranges “from 40 and up.” He’s hoping that “intimate space will also be appropriate even for younger generations.”
For tickets and information email appiaproductions@gmail.com or visit online
www.eventbrite.com/e/stefano-miceli-and-monika-krajewska-in-histoire-du-tango-tickets-301405551117?aff=ebdssbdestsearch, or call the Greenwich Arts Council at (203) 862-6750.
