Music Guild Continues 40th Anniversary Season With All-Beethoven Concert

By SARAH SHMERLING | Editor-in-Chief

St. Matthew’s Music Guild will continue its 40th anniversary season of concerts on Friday, November 1, at 8 p.m. with an all-Beethoven program conducted by Dwayne Milburn.

“Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as a pianist of ‘unerring, warm-toned refinement, revealing judicious glimmers of power,’ Robert Thies joins us as we spend an evening with the music of Beethoven,” Music Guild wrote in a statement. “Thies first captured worldwide attention in 1995 when he won the gold medal at the Second International Prokofiev Competition in St. Petersburg, Russia, thus becoming the only American pianist to win first prize in a Russian piano competition since Van Cliburn’s famed triumph in Moscow in 1958.”

The Los Angeles resident—taught by Robert Turner and Daniel Pollack—has had a “diverse” career as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. He has performed 40 concerti with orchestras across the world, according to his biography, including Saint Petersburg Philharmonic, National Symphony of Mexico, Virginia Symphony and Pasadena Symphony.

Thies’ concerts have been broadcast across the globe, in such places like the United States, Russia, Estonia, Bolivia, Hungary, Latvia, Mexico and New Zealand.

The Music Guild program will begin with Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Creatures of Prometheus Overture,” followed by “Symphony No. 5.” Thies will then join the orchestra for “Third Piano Concerto.”

“Originally believed to have been composed in 1800, scholars now believe Beethoven completed the work in the summer and fall of 1802,” Music Guild President Tom Neenan wrote about “Third Piano Concerto.” “The only one of the five piano concertos in a minor key, many scholars consider the ‘Piano Concerto No. 3’ to be the first major work of Beethoven’s middle period, that is music written after he struck out on his ‘new path.’”

The concert will take place at St. Matthew’s Church, located at 1035 Bienveneda Avenue. It has been underwritten by a “generous grant” from the Colburn Foundation.

Pre-concert “Liner Notes”—free for all ticket holders—will begin at 7:10 p.m. Tickets are available for $45 or as part of a season subscription.