Performance 1: 6:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Performance 2: 7:30 PM - 10:00 PM
Each performance includes an hourlong spirits tasting, followed by a twilight walk through the cemetery to the Catacombs.
Mahler’s towering 9th Symphony is one of the single most profound musical statements ever written, culminating in a final movement that unfolds as an extended meditation on mortality, slowly and achingly exploring the space between sound and silence, presence and absence, life and death.
Normally this piece requires a 100-person orchestra, but since that might feel a bit tight in the Catacombs, we went one better by bringing in the staggering pianistic talents of Jed Distler & Jerome Kuderna, to perform a rarely-heard arrangement of the work for four hands on one piano that’s both epic and intimate.
Come experience this heart-rendingly poignant, bittersweetly beautiful farewell to life, performed in the Catacombs as you’ll never hear it again.
I. Comfortably, at a moderate tempo
II. In the tempo of a leisurely country dance
III. Rondo burlesque: Very fast, very defiant
IV. Adagio: Very slow and held back
ASCAP award winner Jed Distler’s compositions are characterized by audacity, subtle craftsmanship, fresh harmonic ideas, agile counterpoint, and a rare sense of humor. His forays into piano theater combine acting and instrumental virtuosity in novel, original ways that have raised the bar for this genre, particularly in his evening-length collaboration with playwright Ed Schmidt and director Arnold Barkus, “The Gold Standard.”
Jerome Kuderna received his initial training in piano and conducting in Denver with Antonia Brico. While studying the music of Webern and Schoenberg with Rudolf Kolisch he performed works by the 2nd Viennese school with soprano Bethany Beardslee. He studied piano with Adele Marcus at Juilliard and Robert Helps at the New England Conservatory. He has taught at the University of Louisville and at Princeton University where he met Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt. His doctoral studies at NYU included a Ph. D dissertation on the piano works of Babbitt. He also taught music literature at Diablo Valley College.