Fredonia School of Music piano professor and renowned Bach specialist, Fr. Seán Duggan, will present the complete cycle of J.S. Bach's "The Well-Tempered Clavier" over three consecutive evenings in March in celebration of Bach’s 333rd birthday.
The cycle will be performed at Rosch Recital Hall on the Fredonia campus on March 20, 21, and 22, at 8 p.m.
Fr. Duggan notes that Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier," consisting of 48 preludes and fugues, needs to be spread out over more than one concert when performed as a cycle, due to its length and the kind of concentration needed by both performer and listeners. He added that especially given the fact that March 21 is the date of Bach's birthday, he thought it would be good to have it spread over three consecutive evenings, with the birthday in the center. Three evenings also allows 16 preludes and fugues to be heard each evening, in two groups of eight, providing a nice length of time and balance for the audience. Book One will be covered in the first evening and in the first half of the second evening; Book Two will commence in the second half of the second evening and finish out on the third evening. Fr. Duggan noted, “it will be live streamed, but you should experience this in-person.”
Fr. Duggan is a monk of St. Joseph Abbey in Covington, La. He obtained his music degrees from Loyola University in New Orleans and Carnegie Mellon University, and earned a master’s degree in theology from Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. From 1988 to 2001 he taught music, Latin and religion at St. Joseph Seminary College in Louisiana and was director of music and organist at St. Joseph Abbey.
In September, 1983 he won first prize in the Johann Sebastian Bach International Competition for Pianists in Washington, D.C., and again in August, 1991. Having a special affinity for the music of Bach, in 2000 he performed the complete cycle of Bach’s keyboard works eight times in various American and European cities. For seven years he hosted a weekly program on the New Orleans NPR station entitled “Bach on Sunday.” He is presently in the midst of recording the complete cycle of Bach’s keyboard (piano) music which will comprise 24 CDs.
Before he joined the Benedictine order he was pianist and assistant chorus master for the Pittsburgh Opera Company for three years. He has performed with many orchestras including the Louisiana Philharmonic, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Leipzig Baroque Soloists, The Prague Chamber Orchestra, The American Chamber Orchestra and the Pennsylvania Sinfonia. From 2110 to 2004 he was a visiting professor of piano at the University of Michigan.
Currently, he is associate professor of piano at the Fredonia School of Music. During the fall semester of 2008 he was also a guest professor of piano at Eastman School of Music. He has been a guest artist and adjudicator at the Chautauqua Institution during several summers, and is also a faculty member of the Golandsky Institute at Princeton, N.J. He continues to study the Taubman approach with Edna Golandsky in New York City.
The recitals will be live streamed.
