In the 1920s, two women who had recently moved to Carmel – Dene Denny and Hazel Watrous – envisioned creating the Monterey Peninsula’s first local concert association.
Today, the Carmel Music Society stands as the oldest nonprofit arts organization in the state of California. This weekend, they open their 92nd season with a dynamic young pianist.
Music Society President Anne Thorp and her co-president husband Peter heard Yekwon Sunwoo when they travelled to Fort Worth for the 2017 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, where the 29-year old became the first Korean to take home Cliburn gold.
“All of the competitors at that level are incredibly gifted,” Thorp says, “so it is rare that a clear front-runner emerges. These are young players in a very long, highly stressful competition having to play things like Rachmaninoff’s horrendously difficult Piano Concerto No. 3. We felt that Yekwon was definitely in the top three after that.”
He’ll open the afternoon with selections from Strauss and Schubert, before returning after intermission for a reading of Johannes Brahms’ massive, five-movement behemoth, Sonata No. 3 in F Minor, op. 5, which requires considerable stamina and lightning-quick execution.
Musicologist Dr. Todd Samra offers a pre-concert lecture to elucidate the program’s finer points, and Sunwoo will return in February to solo with the Brentano String Quartet.
Before Denny and Watrous, there were occasional concerts in small venues. House concerts the two women produced in 1925 and 1926 were hugely successful, which led to the founding of Carmel Music Society in 1927. They went on to create and produce a summer series as well, with the first-ever Carmel Bach Festival.
“Those two women were absolute powerhouses,” Thorp says. “They were artists, architects, designers, decorators and patrons of the arts with a clear, assertive vision.”
YEKWON SUNWOO, 3pm Sunday, Sept. 30. Sunset Center, San Carlos and Ninth, Carmel. $45-$60. 625-9938, carmelmusic.org
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