The Art of Bach
The Art of Fugue
The Art of Democracy
Starting at 4pm | The Big Barn, Putney VT | Free admission
With pianists Albert Cano Smit and Mikael Darmanie
On Election Day 2024, Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Art of Fugue becomes a musical affirmation of democracy. Bach's contrapuntal masterpiece will be performed in its entirety by Albert Cano Smit, with responses and anticipations improvised by Mikael Darmanie.
4pm—Pre-concert introduction
4:30-7:30pm—Performance in 50-minute intervals to allow audience members to arrive and depart as desired
The evening will conclude with an informal discussion with Albert and Mikael hosted by Artistic Director Seth Knopp.
Presented by Yellow Barn in partnership with the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation
The first retreat program in the United States created specifically for professional, performing musicians, Yellow Barn’s Artist Residencies provide an environment conducive to undistracted study, an exchange of ideas, and opportunities for performance. Each residency season is defined by artists’ proposals and Yellow Barn’s artistic vision. Since 2008, 150 musicians and ensembles have come to Yellow Barn to create new work, to prepare repertoire for performance, and to explore all forms of solo and chamber music. www.yellowbarn.org
Born: October 4, 1996 (Geneva, Switzerland)
Spanish/Dutch pianist Albert Cano Smit won First Prize in the 2017 International Piano Competition. In 2019 he was named a winner in the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. Other awards and honors include being selected as an Emerging Artist 2023 by Symphony magazine, The Paul A. Fish Memorial Prize, the Alexander Kasza-Kasser Concert Prize for support of his Kennedy Center debut, the Friends of Music Prize (NY), and the Sunday Musicale Prize (NJ).
Orchestral appearances include: the Brahms Concerto No. 2 with the Las Vegas Philharmonic conducted by Donato Cabrera; and performances with the Seattle Symphony, Boca del Rio Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfonica de Barcelona, Catalonia National Orchestra and Glacier Symphony. He has also appeared with the San Diego Symphony, Montreal Symphony, Manchester Camerata, Nottingham Youth Orchestra, and American Youth Symphony.
Albert Cano Smit has given solo recitals at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, for the Steinway Society The Bay Area in San Jose, New York's Salon de Virtuosi, and Bravo! Vail Festival, and has been in residency at the Tippet Rise Art Center. He has given recitals abroad in Xiamen, China, in France at the Wissembourg Festival and Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, at Germany's Rheingau Music Festival, and throughout Spain. Mr. Cano Smit tours with violinist William Hagen in venues throughout the U.S. and in Germany, and with flutist Anthony Trionfo he has performed in New York's Merkin Concert Hall and the Morgan Library & Museum, and at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater in Washington, DC.
Mr. Cano Smit began his collegiate studies with Ory Shihor at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles. He also studied at The Juilliard School with Robert McDonald and received the Arthur Rubinstein Prize in Piano. Other notable mentors include Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Richard Goode and Stephen Hough.
As part of his Naumburg prize, Albert received a commission, Partita for piano by Stephen Hough, that was premiered on Albert's Naumburg concert when he made his Carnegie Hall debut in Weill Recital Hall on October 15, 2019.
