The Fryderyk Chopin Society of Connecticut & New Britain Museum of American Art Presents
Evren Ozel Piano Recital
The New Britain Museum of American Art
56 Lexington Street, New Britain, CT.
Fryderyk Chopin Society of Connecticut is thrilled to partner with the New Britain Museum of American Art to bring visitors classical music performances from world-renowned pianists.
All shows begin at 3 p.m. in the Stanley Works Center.
Doors to event space will open at 2:30 p.m.
Concert seating is first come, first served on day of the concert and seating capacity is limited to 120. Pre-registration will no longer be available.
Concert attendees must register at the front desk upon arrival. Museum Members are free, and Museum guests are welcome with purchase of an admission ticket.
Chopin Society attendees receive 50% discount for the FCS concerts; access to museum galleries is included with concert ticket purchase.
Biography
American pianist Evren Ozel began his musical studies at age 3 in his hometown of Minneapolis, MN. He has won numerous honors and awards including scholarships from the U.S Chopin Foundation and Young Arts Foundation, first prize at the 2016 Boston Symphony Concerto Competition, second prize at the 2016 Thomas and Evon Cooper International Competition, and second prize as well as Mozart and Chopin special prizes at the 2018 Dublin International Piano Competition. Most recently, he received second prize and special prizes for Best Mazurka and Best Polonaise at the 2020 U.S. National Chopin Competition securing the honor of representing the U.S.A in the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, Poland in October 2021, where he was a quarter-finalist.
Ozel has performed with orchestras such as the Cleveland Orchestra, Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, RTE National Symphony and Boston Pops among others. In 2018, as a freshman at New England Conservatory, Evren won both the Honors Piano Competition and the NEC Chamber Concerto Competition which garnered him an opportunity to play on the Jordan Hall stage with the school’s conductor-less orchestra.
An avid chamber musician, Ozel was selected by Mitsuko Uchida to participate in the prestigious Marlboro Music Festival. There he performed with Jonathan Biss, Alice Neary, Marcy Rosen and Joseph Lin, among others. Three of his performances at the festival have already been featured in the archived Historic Recordings from Marlboro. In 2019, he participated in ChamberFest Cleveland, featured in their Rising Star program, performing along side artists such as Franklin Cohen, Peter Wiley and Hsin-Yun Huang. Of his performance of Franck Sonata with Nathan Meltzer, Cleveland Classical wrote “Meltzer and Ozel attended to every contour of the music with care, crafting a longform melodic idea that flowed effortlessly from phrase to phrase and movement to movement. It was a privilege to witness.”
Other chamber experiences include invitations to play with Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players and Chamber Music Live! at Queen’s College. He was also a member of Gruppetto Trio which was selected as a New England Conservatory Honors Ensemble in the 2018/2019 school year.
Other summer festival experiences include the International Mendelssohn Akademie Leipzig in 2018 as a Mendelssohn Fellow, taking masterclasses with Pavel Gililov and Matti Raekallio, and the Oxford Philomusica Piano Festival in 2015, where he had masterclasses with Ferenc Rados, Menahem Pressler, and Andras Schiff. He has also been selected to perform in masterclasses for Richard Goode, Paul Lewis, Mitsuko Uchida, Garrick Ohlssohn, Robert Levin, Hugh Wolff, Lang Lang and others.
His 2022/2023 Season includes solo recitals for Chamber Music Detroit and the Asheville Symphony Recital Series, as well as Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Midland Symphony Orchestra, and duo recitals for Washington Performing Arts and Philadelphia Chamber Music Society with violinist Geneva Lewis.
Ozel is currently in the Master of Music program at New England Conservatory in Boston, MA where he has been studying with Wha Kyung Byun since 2014. He is represented by Concert Artists Guild, as one of the Ambassador Prize winners of their 2021 Victor Elmaleh Virtual Competition.
Program
J. S. BACH (1685-1750)
Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp minor, BWV 873 (WTC II)
LEON KIRCHNER (1919-2009)
Interlude II (2003)
CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Preludes, Book II (selections)
General Lavine — eccentric
La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune
Ondine
BÉLA BARTOK (1881-1945)
Out of Doors, Sz. 81
FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN (1810-1849)
Mazurka in C-sharp minor, Op. 50 No. 3
Mazurka in E minor, Op. 41 No. 1
Mazurka in F minor, Op. 7 No. 3
Scherzo in E Major, Op. 54