By Kevin Coughlin
Classical pianist Sebastián Forster has performed all over the world. But he won’t have to sweat any airport connections for his next concert.
In fact, the Morristown resident can walk there.
Forster’s Tangata Trio will celebrate Father’s Day by performing the music of his godfather, Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, at the Mayo Performing Arts Center.
“I am loving this situation!” said Forster. “A world-class venue, with a world-class performance.”
Forster knows about great venues. He has appeared many times at Amsterdam’s famed Concertgebouw Hall, and has charmed audiences across Europe, South America and the U.S.
“His touch is commanding but subtle at the same time. He can express the most adventuresome and bold statements, but he is also capable of performing the most intricate and delicate passages in classical music,” Antonio Mormone, artistic director of the Fondazione La Società Di Concerti, said after hearing Forster perform Liszt, Mozart and Prokofiev in Milan.
Sebastian Forster & Friends Present: Tangata Trio
Sunday, June 19, 2016, 7 pm
Mayo Performing Arts Center
100 South St.
Tickets: $25 ($20 with student I.D.)
Call 973-539-8008
Forster’s expressiveness and originality on concertos by Mozart and Beethoven have produced “some of the finest of these works that have ever been recorded,” according to Tamal Gal, conductor of the MAV Symphony Orchestra and a professor at the Liszt Music Academy.
These fresh interpretations “put him in an internationally select class,” Gal said.
Forster, who teaches at the Piano School of New York City, secured his green card by recording all 32 of Beethoven’s piano sonatas.
A Beethoven piece is on the MPAC program for the June 19, 2016, concert.
But the Buenos Aires native is equally excited about introducing his adopted hometown to works by his innovative countryman, the late Astor Piazzolla.
Piazzolla, who persuaded Forster’s parents to buy the boy a piano for their summer home, fused elements of baroque, classical, jazz, rock and tango to forge “a style of his own,” said Forster, 41.
A virtuoso team will help Forster spread the tango gospel: Grammy-nominated cellist Sara Sant’Ambrogio, a founder of the Eroica Trio who performed with Sting in Twin Spirits (about Robert and Clara Schumann); and violinist Galina Zhdanova.
Zhdanova’s stage credits include Josh Groban, Steven Tyler (Aerosmith), Sarah Brightman, David Byrne (Talking Heads), and The Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
Forster’s only regret for the Father’s Day show is that his father and teenaged son cannot join him. The program, he said, includes a song Piazzolla wrote in memory of his own dad.
He can hardly wait to play it on the Mayo Center’s Steinway.
“The piano is gorgeous,” enthused Forster, who settled a few blocks from the theater in 2012 and married Morristown resident Jennifer Hauser.
Forster also looks forward to Sunday’s commute.
“Nonstop walking!” he said.
Video: The Tangata Trio celebrates the music of Astor Piazzolla
