Final Note
Saturday, February 20, 2027
12:30 AM
Location shared upon purchase of ticket(s).
This recital features music bequeathed to us from the edge of silence: three composers' final testaments for the piano. Brahms' Op. 119 Intermezzos, shadowy and fatalistic, offer their emotional journey through moments of breathtaking intimacy. Schubert's monumental B-flat Major Sonata unfolds like an entire lifetime. And Beethoven's Op. 126 Bagatelles, penned in total deafness and declared by the composer to be his finest work in the miniature genre, present Beethoven's most distilled musical thought. The final movement culminates in a transcendental benediction, in which one seems to hear a soul making peace with eternity before a final ecstatic leap into freedom.
This recital features music bequeathed to us from the edge of silence: three composers' final testaments for the piano. Brahms' Op. 119 Intermezzos, shadowy and fatalistic, offer their emotional journey through moments of breathtaking intimacy. Schubert's monumental B-flat Major Sonata unfolds like an entire lifetime. And Beethoven's Op. 126 Bagatelles, penned in total deafness and declared by the composer to be his finest work in the miniature genre, present Beethoven's most distilled musical thought. The final movement culminates in a transcendental benediction, in which one seems to hear a soul making peace with eternity before a final ecstatic leap into freedom.
Program
Variaciones del fandango español Félix Máximo López
Harpsichord Sonata in G major Marianne Martinez
Sonata El jardín de Aranjuez José Herrando
Sonata in G minor G 29 op 5 no 5 Luigi Boccherini
Folia Variations Pedro Lopes Nogueira
Canarios Gaspar Sanz, arr. Brian Kay
Intermezzos, op. 119 Johannes Brahms
Bagatelles, op. 126 Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Sonata in B-flat Major, D960 Franz Schubert
Soloist
Irwin Shung
-“…lets the notes ring, as if painting with the reverberation. Like a gradually cresting wave, the intensity peaks…”
–Cleveland Classical
Dr. Irwin Shung, whose playing has been praised by State Magazine for its “ease, technique, and musicianship,” has performed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Shung teaches keyboard ensembles at Case Western Reserve University, in addition to serving as Artistic Director of The Resonance Project since its founding in Seattle. He maintains an active musical profile both on the American West Coast and in Northeast Ohio, where he was recently selected as Heights Arts’ Artist of the Month. As President of the Northeast Ohio Music Teachers Association, Shung oversaw the development of dynamic new programs for hundreds of regional precollegiate music students in Cuyahoga, Geauga, and Lorain Counties.
Shung received his D.M.A. in Piano Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2015, where he studied with Dr. Daniel Shapiro. Other teachers include Marian Hahn (Peabody Conservatory), Leon Fleisher (Peabody Conservatory), Herbert Stessin (Juilliard School), Gabriel Chodos (New England Conservatory), and Victoria Bogdashevskaya (Moscow Conservatory). Awards received include the Pauline Favin Memorial Award from the Peabody Conservatory of Music and a win in the Darius Milhaud Competition. Shung recently premiered his work for solo piano, Seven Chinese Characters, alongside a live painting by the internationally renowned artist Li Qian. In October 2026, he will present a recital inspired by with the Cleveland Museum of Art in conjunction with its upcoming exhibition Ten Kings of Hell.