Pianist Manabu Takasawa’s annual Mother’s Day concert is the final concert of the Jamestown Community Piano Association’s 2016-2017 season.

Dr. Takasawa will introduce his program with Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.12 in A major, one of three concerti that were composed in 1782 not only for concert use but also for performance at home by a piano and string quartet.  While the strings introduce the themes and create the context for the pianist, the piano is “an operatic diva, a faultlessly courteous one, of course, but one who is definitely the star attraction of the show.”  The string quartet joining Dr. Takasawa for the concerto has Emily Anthony and John Simpson on violin, Ilana Revkin on viola, and William Korennoy on cello.

Two pieces from the first suite of Franz Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage) solo piano compositions follow:  Au bord d’une source (Beside a Spring) in A-flat major and Vallée d’Obermann (Obermann’s Valley) in E minor.  The program concludes with Hungarian Rhapsody No.6 in D-flat Major, the sixth in a set of 19 piano pieces Liszt composed based on Hungarian folk themes.

This is Dr. Takasawa’s 11th Mother’s Day concert for the Jamestown Community Piano Association. Born in Niigata, Japan, Dr. Takasawa made his solo recital debut at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1992 and has since performed in many countries from Taiwan to Poland to Belize.  Dr. Takasawa’s interest in communicating with students through music has led him to perform in elementary and secondary schools in the Rhode Island area, and in schools as far away as Japan, Taiwan, and Vietnam.  He has supported the JCPA as a consultant for many years.

Dr. Takasawa is professor of music and director of the graduate program in the Department of Music at the University of Rhode Island.  In 2003, he initiated the annual URI Piano Extravaganza! festival, at which young pianists from all over New England compete.

First violinist Emily Anthony lives and teaches violin in Jamestown and is a founding member of the Amari string quartet.  John Simpson is a violinist in the Narragansett Bay Symphony Community Orchestra; he also makes violins and will be playing one of his own instruments. Ilana Revkin, a freelance violist, is a core member of the La Bella Musica String Quartet.  William Korennoy, cello, graduated from the Odessa State Conservatory, and played for several years with the Odessa Opera Theater and Philharmonic.