Robert Taub To Perform At Institute For Advanced Study

Pianist Robert Taub will perform at the Institute for Advanced Study on April 10, 12, and 13 at 8:00 p.m. The concerts will take place in Wolfensohn Hall on the Institute campus.

Taub's program will include Beethoven's Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 81a ("Das Lebewohl"); Davidsb�ndlert�nze, Op. 6, by Schumann; the Concert Paraphrase of "Rigoletto" (Verdi-Liszt); and Reflections, for piano and synthesized tape, by Milton Babbitt.

Jon Magnussen, Institute Artist-in-Residence, comments, "This concert is a wonderful opportunity to share the musical company of two prominent American musical personalities who also happen to be Princetonians. Robert Taub has been closely linked with much of Milton Babbitt's pianistic output, and it is especially exciting that he will perform one of this pioneering composer's compositions that incorporates electronics."

The program highlights both programmatic references and extra-musical notions, according to the performer. "Op. 81a is the only Beethoven Piano Sonata that refers to external, non-musical events— the leave-taking, the absence, and the return of his friend and patron Archduke Rudolf," says Taub. "Liszt, a pianistic giant and constant innovator, brings both symphonic and vocal writing to his stunning Rigoletto paraphrase. Babbitt's Reflections uses synthesized sounds to create new timbres, and the ways in which they interweave with the piano sonorities are often magical.

"Schumann's Davidsb�ndlert�nze, an offering to his fianc�e Clara, is his piano work that is most symbolic both in terms of specific uses of keys and overall dramatic structure."

Robert Taub's repertoire embraces music from the Baroque era to the present day. Since his debut in 1981 at Alice Tully Hall in New York City, he has performed several times in the Great Performers Series at Lincoln Center, and appeared throughout the United States, Europe, the Far East, and Latin America. He has performed with the San Francisco, Utah, Montreal, and Singapore symphony orchestras; the Munich, BBC, and Bonn philharmonic orchestras; and many other orchestras worldwide, in the world's most prestigious concert halls. Taub's most recent Carnegie Hall appearance included the world premiere of Milton Babbitt's Concerto No. 2, with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra under James Levine.

Taub is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Princeton University. As a Danforth Fellow he completed his doctoral degree at the Juilliard School, where he received the highest award in piano. From 1990 to 1992 he was Blodgett Artist-in-Residence at Harvard University, in 1993 he led the chamber music program at Princeton University, and the following year he was guest lecturer for the doctoral program at Rutgers University. He has led music forums at Oxford University, Cambridge University, and the Juilliard School. Recently named Visiting Professor at London's Kingston University, Taub will complete a Beethoven sonata cycle and perform programs of contemporary music.

His book, Playing the Beethoven Piano Sonatas, has just been published by Amadeus Press. Taub records on the Vox, Harmonia Mundi, New World, and CRI labels.

Taub was for seven years Artist-in-Residence at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he presented, among other concerts, the complete cycle of Beethoven Sonatas in nine programs. Vox Music deemed Taub's recordings of the Beethoven sonata cycle, "A survey as remarkable for the intellectual grasp of the materials as for its technical assurance and aura of poetic spontaneity," while The New York Times noted Taub's "unique and completely thrilling rendition of the music."

There will be a pre-concert discussion with Taub and Magnussen on April 9 at 4:30 p.m. in Wolfensohn Hall.

The concerts are sponsored by the Institute's Artist-in-Residence program. For more information on the Institute for Advanced Study's 2001-02 Concert Series, or to inquire about tickets, which are free, call 734-8228, or see www.ias.edu/artist-in-residence.