Renowned Pianist David Syme At Mendelssohn
Mendelssohn Performing Arts Center presents a special concert by internationally renowned pianist David Syme at 7 p.m., Saturday, May 18, at the historic Emerson House, 420 N. Main St., Rockford.
The program will feature works by Chopin, Liszt, Ravel, Rachmaninoff and other famous composers. Highlights include Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.”
Syme is an American pianist who now lives in Ireland, from which he bases his European tours. An alumnus of Juilliard and Indiana University, David was a protégé of the great Jorge Bolet, and he has performed in 17 foreign countries and across the United States. Syme has twice appeared with the Rockford Symphony Orchestra under Steve Larsen’s direction.
Syme plays about 20 dates per year in his much-heralded in-home concert series in Ireland, where he is steadily attaining greater acclaim. The intimate nature of Emerson House allows Syme to bring his popular house concert program to Rockford, giving concertgoers the opportunity to enjoy Syme’s performance and his engaging personality, along with meeting him after the concert.
Syme has appeared at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Kennedy Center, The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and major venues in 17 European countries, Canada and Mexico. He has recorded 25 concertos on 19 CD’s with such orchestras as the Royal Philharmonic, London Philharmonia, the Vienna Symphony and Czech National Symphony. Recent concerto engagements have featured the Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Schumann, Liszt E-Flat, Gershwin and Rachmaninoff 2nd and 3rd with orchestras in the U.S. and Europe. Syme’s performance of the Rachmaninoff 3rd was heralded by the Arizona Daily Star as “nothing shy of spectacular.”
“We are so excited to bring David Syme back to Rockford,” Mendelssohn Performing Arts Center Executive Director Beverly Broyles said. “David rehearsed here at Mendelssohn PAC for his last concert with the RSO, and he fell in love with the intimate atmosphere of our Emerson House. He knew as soon as he saw it that he wanted to hold a concert there.”