BRATTLEBORO — Renana Gutman is thrilled to be returning to Marlboro College for the first two free concerts in this year's “Music for a Sunday Afternoon” series.
After having been invited by her former teacher Richard Goode, Gutman spent three summers in Vermont at the Marlboro Music Festivals from 2006-2008, where she collaborated with celebrated pianists Goode and Mitsuko Uchida.
“I fell in love with the place,” she says, “and I really felt part of the community.”
The upcoming concerts will give her an opportunity to revisit the landscape she now treasures, as well as numerous dear friends she had made during her time in Vermont.
Gutman's first concert on Jan. 27 will be a solo piano recital in which she will perform Bach's “French Suite in C minor,” Schubert's “Sonata in A minor,” and the “Sonata in B minor” by Liszt.
For the second concert the following Sunday on Feb. 3, she will be joined by violinist Tessa Lark and cellist Alice Yoo for a selection of piano trios: Beethoven's “Piano Trio in E-flat major, op. 1, no. 1,” and Schubert's “Piano Trio in B-flat major, op. 99.”
Both concerts take place in Ragle Hall at 3 p.m.
Gutman is a native of Israel who took up the piano at the age of 6. Soon recognized as a prodigy, garnering multiple awards and honors, she became a recipient of the America Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarship and the Jewish Foundation for the Education of Women Scholarship. She moved to the United States to attend Mannes College of Music in New York and completed her bachelor and master of music degrees under Goode's guidance.
A top-prize winner at Los Angeles Liszt competition, International Keyboard Festival in New York, and Tel-Hai International Master Classes, Gutman has performed across three continents as an orchestral soloist, recitalist, and collaborative artist.
She is an ardent interpreter of Beethoven and was one of four young pianists selected by the renowned Leon Fleisher to participate in his workshop on Beethoven piano sonatas hosted by Carnegie Hall, where she presented performances of Hammerklavier and Appassionata to critical acclaim. She will be performing an early piece by Beethoven in her second trio concert at Marlboro.
“In my solo concert, I will be performing a late and less performed Schubert Sonata, along with Liszt and Bach pieces,” Gutman says.
She confesses that Bach is her first and biggest love.
”The older I get I feel even closer and appreciate Bach more. I wish to open every piano concert I do with something by Bach. I am learning all his French Suites. I am drawn to them because I love dance and suites in general. They are so concise. Playing them is becoming my bread and butter, with which I open and end every day. It has sort of become a ritual.”
The trio concert will be the first time Gutman has performed together with Lark and Yoo, although all three women have known and liked each other a long time.
“Both are amazing musicians,” says Gutman. “We are really excited about performing together.”
Lark has performed widely with symphonic orchestras, and was a featured soloist with both the Beijing Symphony and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Yoo is a top prizewinner of a number of cello competitions and has performed extensively both throughout the United States and abroad as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician.
Both are graduates of the New England Conservatory of Music and, more locally, both are past Yellow Barn Music Festival musicians.
“In the trio concerts, we are coupling an early piano trio by Beethoven with a very late piano trio by Schubert,” Gutman says. “The Beethoven trio is is filled with humor. The Schubert trio was, I believe, next to his last, written at the very end of his life, which you must remember is when he was only in his very early 30s, because he died so young. A piece full of beauty, it is a really strong work, that in some ways seems more Beethoven than Schubert. Schubert admired Beethoven more than anyone so his influence is not surprising.”
When she reaches Vermont next week, Gutman says she hopes to touch base with beloved colleagues such as Judith Serkin and retired Marlboro professor Luis Battle and his family, whom she tries to visit at least once a year.
“Vermont is a dear place to me,” she says. “My life would have been completely different if I never had come to Marlboro. For that I will always be grateful. I think the people of Vermont have good potential for the future of arts and classical music in Vermont, and I am happy to be part of that.”