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ABOUT THE ARTIST
A former winner of the Naumburg, Michaels and Leventritt Competitions , William Doppmann has concertized in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, South America and the Far East as recitalist and as soloist with major orchestras including the Chicago, Cincinnati, Houston, Detroit, Seattle and Tokyo Symphonies, and at numerous festivals including Marlboro, Cleveland's Blossom Festival, Ravinia in Chicago, the Hong Kong International Festival, Chamber Music Northwest and the Kuhmo International Festival in Finland. His 1986 New York recital at Lincoln Center was described by the Times as one of the most distinctive of the season . Also a composer, Mr. Doppmann has received two NEA consortium Grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship,. the University of Michigan Alumni Citation of Merit , and ASCAP Annual Awards since 1993. He served as Artistic Director of Chamber Music at Port Townsend for twenty five years until 2000. Mr. Doppmann has made chamber music recordings for Nonesuch, Delos and Finland's Kuhmo Festival Recordings. About Albany Recordings release (JamesYannatos Piano Concerto with the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra 1998) Stephen Ellis commented in Fanfare William Doppmann is an exceptional pianist, one of the great unheralded keyboard artists of our day Praise for Four American Piano Sonatas released on compact disk by Equilibrium in 1999, has been widespread and is typified by Stuart Hamilton s (CBC) comment The performance is profoundly musical, the virtuosity stupefying. The 2004 release of Goldberg Variations: A View From The 21st Century (Divers Inc. release) has similarly been received ( A marvelous explanation of this great work , Maurice Hinson). ABOUT THE PROGRAM The turbulent growing pains of artistic changes of direction only crystallize out into something we may call a transition by hindsight, long after the fact, and thenceforward subject to critical re-evaluation as times, taste and customs succeed themselves. These two pairs of composers, Rachmaninoff and Bartók, Liszt and Debussy, seem antithetical as to native culture, traditions and personal predilection when we remind ourselves of their established masterworks. How to compare, say, The Isle of the Dead, The Miraculous Mandarin, The Mephisto Waltzes and La Mer? But here they are represented as pianist-composers, influenced one by another, and merging together through separate quests toward a twentieth-century keyboard style that reflects our speeded-up sense of passing time, our growing cynicism and penchant for the large-scale disasters of war, overpopulation, and promiscuous defoliation of all natural resources. Nevertheless, I offer these performances in the spirit that prompted their composition: joyful outpourings, however hectic, or darker ruminations, however unsettling. William Doppmann