Join us Friday October 10 for a Recital & Masterclass.
Reservations are required please. Seating is limited.
RSVP via email: thestudio615@gmail.com
Studio Share Madison is able to offer this event FREE - Thank you Madison Area Music Educators for your partnership and generosity.
About the Performer
Catherine Kautsky is an active performer lauded by the New York Times as a pianist whose “music spoke directly to the listener, with neither obfuscation nor pretense.” She is chair of the keyboard department at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, and previously chaired the keyboard department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, winning honors at both institutions for research, performance, and teaching. She has played and taught across the United States, as well as in Asia, Africa, South America, and Europe, and is known for the lively commentary that accompanies her music. catherinekautsky.com
Ms. Kautsky is known for her cross-disciplinary interests, she was awarded the Arts Institute Create Arts Award at UW-Madison and has presented frequently at national conferences on such topics as “On the Trail of Chopin and George Sand,” “WWI: A Centenary Look at the Musical Wars,” and “Celebrating Debussy and the Arts du Spectacle”. Her articles have appeared in Clavier Companion, American Music Teacher, and International Piano, and her book, Debussy’s Paris: Piano Portraits of the Belle Epoque, was published by Rowman & Littlefield in September 2017. Reviewed by Booklist as “a fascinating fusion of music, literature, and social history,” it has won accolades from eminent pianists across the country. Catherine Kautsky is Chair of Keyboard and George and Marjorie Olsen Chandler Professor of Music at Lawrence University, Appleton, WI.
About the Program
Franz Schubert’s Sonata in a-minor was published after his death (1839), but was composed in 1823. Schubert composed 22 piano sonatas in addition to his 6 masses, 9 symphonies, over 600 lieder (songs for voice), 17 operas and Singspiele, chamber works, and many additional 2- and 4-hand works for piano.
Catherine Kautsky’s essay “Preludes and Poets” was published in International Piano, Jan/Feb 2005. She writes: Claude Debussy’s preludes “(pay) tribute to the richness of artistic experiences”. Debussy explores ideas of “far-off” distance, and in his preludes “sets out on one trajectory, then unexpectedly takes another path”.
Frederic Rzewski bases each of the seven sections of “Songs of Insurrection” on a protest song from a different country. Music critic Richard S. Ginnell writes of Rzewski’s leftist, politically motivated sympathies: “I doubt if Rzewski … could have predicted that … a real insurrection on the Capitol in Washington D.C. would occur … and that it would come from the right wing, not at all where Rzewski is coming from.” (May 8, 2021, accessed online October 2, 2025:
https://classicalvoiceamerica.org/2021/05/08/insurrection-songs-rzewski-redux-only-this-time-its-global/)