Marianne Parker
Pincushion Protea
from Flower Catalog
Program notes.
"I kind of like the textures of succulents" is how our initial meeting about this piece began. Marianne had discovered the Pincushion Protea about five years ago while searching for the right flower to put in her bridal bouquet. She was intranced by this pointy, brilliant orange, alien-looking, joyful bloom, and this piece is all about capturing those textures and angles while balancing the resulting jagged rhythms (Marianne is a percussionist at heart, after all!) with lushness and romance.
About.
Flower Catalog is a book of twelve preludes for piano, inspired by Debussy’s Preludes in terms of scope and structure. The idea for this project started with a short work, Lilac, commissioned by Jenny Lin in 2018. The other eleven preludes have been commissioned by other piano soloists, each about her own favorite flower, and are all between 2.5-5 minutes in length so that the entire collection can live and breath as a full concert set but each prelude can also be utilized as a uniquely personal encore.
Flower Catalog is a commission by Lise de la Salle, Marianne Parker, Diane Katzenberg Braun, Eunbi Kim, Holly Roadfeldt, Adrienne Park, Susie Maddocks, Sarah Bob, Marta Aznavoorian, Jenny Lin, and Lucille Chung.
“I hear the explosion of
the color and of the brightness. I’m also thinking about the juxtaposition of angles and pointiness with the lushness.”
- Marianne Parker on translating the Pincushion Protea into music
About Marianne.
Pianist Marianne Parker’s playing has been described as “a cut above...her sympathetic fingers offering well-sculpted phrases and impassioned pealing” (Chicago Classical Review). Her debut album, Pages intimes, released in early 2019, features recently re-discovered works by Haitian composers. Marianne is currently curating an anthology of 21st century works for solo piano through NewMusicShelf.
An active chamber musician, Marianne co-founded the marimba and piano new music ensemble, L+M Duo, in 2016 along with marimbist Laurel Black. The duo is committed to commissioning new work for their instrumentation by today’s composers. This season, the duo was featured in Chamber Music Magazine; performed at the Nief-Norf New Music Festival in Knoxville, TN; and produced a public concert in Chicago to celebrate the centennial of the iconic Wrigley Building. A fierce advocate of New Music, Parker is in demand as a collaborator for instrumentalists and vocalists alike. She serves as Vice President of the membership group New Music Chicago, and co-produces the monthly series New Music Chicago Presents... at the Chicago Cultural Center.
Marianne performs with many prominent chamber ensembles across the Midwest, including Milwaukee’s Present Music, and Chicago’s Access Contemporary Music, Fourth Coast Ensemble, Crossing Borders Music, and more. Marianne served as the principal pianist for the Chicago Civic Orchestra, and has performed under the batons of Riccardo Muti, Jaap Van Zweden, Michael Tilson Thomas, Ludovic Morlot, Carlos Miguel Prieto, and Michael Christy.
Marianne’s work is driven by her passion to communicate the vibrancy and variety of classical music, especially to those who have yet to discover it.
More about Marianne on her website here.
Marianne plays Beethoven
Marianne Parker, Piano
