Ithaca College

Pianist Read Gainsford, assistant professor of music performance, will bring two of Beethoven's best-loved piano works to life at a free recital on Sunday, November 9. Featuring the "Moonlight" and "Pathetique" sonatas, as well as Debussy's Etudes, the performance will begin at 7:00 p.m. in Ford Hall in the Whalen Center.

"The 12 etudes of Debussy remain among the least played of his works and are masterpieces barely know even to pianists," Gainsford says. "I have long loved them, and am playing them in several parts of the Northeast this fall before recording them in late November. One of the reasons I suspect that they are less well-known than other pieces of his is that they lack descriptive titles, and so I chose to bookend them with two of the best known of Beethoven's sonatas, ones with well-known nickname titles."

Gainsford has performed widely in the United States, Europe, Australia, South Africa, and his native New Zealand. He has made successful solo debuts at Wigmore Hall and Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, and has performed in many other venues including Queen Elizabeth Hall, Barbican Centre, Fairfield Halls, Birmingham Town Hall, and St. Martin-in-the-Fields. He has recorded for the Amoris label, BBC Radio Three, and Radio New Zealand's Concert Programme and has broadcast on national television in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Yugoslavia.

Contributed by Erik Kibelsbeck