Written in Partnership with Amir Bakian
On July 29th 2023, concert pianist Danny Zhang successfully held her first contemporary concert ‘Holding a Daisy’ as the start of her contemporary concert series in West End Presbyterian Church, New York, NY.This concert have some things in common with a typical classical concert along with some modern twists. The main difference is that this will be a themed concert. The concert series is a series of concerts with different themes combined with visual elements for each one of them. Not like traditional concerts, the stage design elements borrowing from popular concerts makes the concert fresh and more interesting for the audience who usually don’t come to classical concerts.
Danny Zhang was born on 1996 in Liaoning, China. She studied piano at a very young age. She received education from prestigious musicians in China as well as the United States. Danny continued her musical journey at the elementary school of the conservatory of Shenyang as well as in the high school of the conservatory of Shenyang. She was awarded 2 scholarships while under the tutelage of professor Zhe Liand won prizes in her undergraduate such as Zhong Sin International Music Competition, Shenyang Division,First Prize on Etude Group and Second Prize on Sonata and Bach Group. She won the first scholarship in her graduate study in Brooklyn College. She won the first prize of Golden Classical Awards New York and Los Angelos branch and First prize of Progressive Musician Laureate Gala Competition, second prize of both Charleston 2024 classical music competition and 2023 international piano competition.
The concert has poet reading, projecting and stage design elements combining with the beautiful music playing. Every piece has a matched scene shown on the big screen by the projector. While the music is playing by Danny Zhang, the background and lighting start to change throughout the whole concert.
The theme of the concert is the life cycle of a person. It presents how we are born bubbly creatures and gradually grow to see the cruelty and beauty of the world. It also deals with the struggles of aging and the yearning for youth that people experience as they grow older.
she is performing her contemporary piece Holding a Daisy by Joan Tower
The repertoire is: April in Paris By Charles Trenet/ Weissnberg, concert etude op. 40, No. 2 Rverie by Nikolai Kapustin, Piano suite op. 14 by Bela Bartok, Holding A Daisy By Joan Tower, Piano sonata no. 2 by Robert Schumann, Erlkonig by Schubert/Liszt, and the last piece Mother Goose 4 hands for piano by Maurice Ravel featured with Australian pianist Maxwell Hinton. He played the duet with Danny Zhang as special guest in the end as the finale of the concert. Concert Pianist Ronn Yedidia was there to support her and he especially loved the last piece she and Maxwell played together. He complimented the concert as meaningful and fresh to watch.
She has a fun design of the programming. There are Jazz, Ragtime, contemporary, romantic and impressionism music in the program.
The starting piece, April in Paris, is a jazz standard. the classical piano version of it helps to setup a romantic and dreamy mood for the beginning of the concert. Following April in Paris is a jazz/classical structure piece: Kapustin concert etude Reverie. The rhythmic variations combine with the harmony and texture add to the mysterious and dreamy mood. Later the Bartok spiced up the concert with a darker mood and fiery tempo.
The theme of Joan Tower’s piece Holding a Daisy is prevalent throughout the entire piece. The daisy symbolizes hope. Even in a dark hopeless place, the daisy is still carried by our hands. Two romantic pieces help to break the dark mood and take the emotions present within the concert to a new level. During the finale of the concert, the piece Mother Goose represents the feeling of memories of adolescence, haunting and captivating someone in their old age. The idea that after all their struggles and break throughs, highs and lows, people will almost certainly flashback to when their experiences were new, and their time seemed infinite.
This “new-idea” concert is to discover different meanings and possibilities of the classical concerts presentation.The goal for the concert series is for the images to prompt people to think deeply about an overarching theme as they are listening to classical music rather than just focusing on the music itself.
She said: like a lot of pop artists, they change their music styles or even appearances to draw the attention of potential audience. Classical musicians should discover our potential by doing something different as well. When the most people talk about a concert these days, the vast majority of them are referring to a rock or pop concert. Even music which would be considered contemporary instrumental music is grouped with the classical traditions of the previous centuries due to the location and the musicians. I’m looking to introduce classical music to younger generations in a more digestible format, free of elitism.
Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.