Debussy in Paris: Poets, Politics, and the Piano Intertwined

Guest artist Catherine Kautsky, Professor of Piano at Lawrence University, presents a lecture-recital placing Debussy’s piano music in the context of fin-de siècle Paris. We’ll look at fairies and clowns, writers and painters, arabesques and castanets, and along the way we’ll encounter the many issues of race, gender, colonialism and nationalism that affected (and afflicted) Paris c. 1900.

CATHERINE KAUTSKY, Chair of Keyboard at Lawrence University in Appleton, WI, has been lauded by the New York Times as “a pianist who can play Mozart and Schubert as though their sentiments and habits of speech coincided exactly with hers … The music spoke directly to the listener, with neither obfuscation nor pretense.” She was the 2016 winner of the Lawrence Excellence in Teaching Award, the 2013 winner of the university’s Faculty Convocation Award, and in 2017 she was honored with the George and Marjorie Olsen Chandler Chair in Music. Her recording of the Debussy Preludes, released by Centaur in September 2014, was said to “bring out all the power, majesty, and mystery of Debussy’s conception,“ and a recording of the complete Brahms Sonatas for Violin and Piano was released in 2019 to top reviews. Ms. Kautsky, whose teachers included Rosina Lhevinne, Gyorgy Sebok, Leon Fleisher, Martin Canin, and Gilbert Kalish, has concertized widely, performing in major halls such as Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Recital Hall, the Phillips Collection, Jordan Hall, and the Chicago Cultural Center. She has soloed with numerous orchestras, including the St. Louis Symphony and Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra, and appeared frequently on public radio. Two sabbaticals were spent in Paris preparing performances and research on Debussy, and she has played, taught, and presented masterclasses on six continents. Known as both a solo and collaborative performer, Ms. Kautsky has performed chamber music at the Aspen, Tanglewood, and Grand Teton Festivals.

Ms. Kautsky, whose students have won prizes across the country and gone on to leading graduate programs, has taught at Lawrence University Conservatory of Music since 1987, with a 6 -year hiatus as piano faculty and chair of the Keyboard Dept. at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Known for her cross-disciplinary interests, she was awarded the Arts Institute Creative Arts Award at UW-Madison and has presented frequently at national conferences on such topics as “On the Trail of Chopin and George Sand,” “WWI: A Centenary Look at the Musical Wars, “ and “Celebrating Debussy and the Arts du Spectacle.” Her articles have appeared in Clavier Companion, American Music Teacher, and International Piano, and her book, Debussy’s Paris: Piano Portraits of the Belle Epoque, was published by Rowman & Littlefield in September 2017. Reviewed by Booklist as “a fascinating fusion of music, literature, and social history,” it has won accolades from eminent pianists across the country. Ms. Kautsky is also deeply concerned with the role music plays in society and administers a series of prison concerts in WI as well as heading a chapter of Music for Food.

Ms. Kautsky has just released a 24 video set, “Great Works for the Piano” for Great Courses/Wondrium, and is also presenting courses on piano literature for the Juilliard Extension Division and the 92nd Str. Y of New York City. Her current performances and research center on the music of Vienna in the years during and directly preceding the Holocaust, and she has recently returned from presenting and performing at the Relais de Mémoire in Vienna. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory, a master’s from the Juilliard School, and a doctorate from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

http://www.catherinekautsky.com