Thursday evening, 19 May 2011, the Summerlea Spring Concert featured pianist
Elias-Axel Pettersson, in an evening of exciting piano playing. Born in Sweden and raised in Albuquerque New Mexico, Elias received his B.A. in music (with minor in biology) from the University of Rochester, Master of Music from the University of Maryland, College Park as a student of Larissa Dedova, and is currently in the doctoral programme at l'Université de Montréal as a student of Paul Stewart. This list comes nowhere near to covering his musical accomplishments and interests, from modern solo works through chamber music, teaching, creating CD's, etc., etc. He survives in Montreal by parking cars, teaching music, playing concerts, and selling his CD's, which he produces under the Axel Records label. His programme at Summerlea included works by Chopin, Scarlatti and Schubert. Despite his accomplishments, his unassuming manner and the way he introduced the works to the audience by verbal description with a few chords made the music that much more understandable and enjoyable. |