Sakurako Kanemitsu, piano
featuring paintings by Peter London
and music by Ryan Suleiman (Ph.D. music ‘20)

Program

Modest Mussorgsky: Selections from Pictures at an Exhibition (1874)

Claude Debussy: L’isle Joyeuse (1904)

Franz Liszt: “Sposalizio” from Second Year of Pilgrimage: Italy (1858)

Ryan Suleiman: Three London Etudes (2024) WORLD PREMIERE
   Radiant
   Floating Triptych
   Electric Clouds
**commissioned by and in collaboration with artist Peter London for Sakurako Kanemitsu, piano

Free
a Shinkoskey Noon Concert

About the Artists

Boston-based pianist Sakurako Kanemitsu is a colorful and creative interpreter of music ranging from the established classical repertoire to the music of our time. She began her studies at the age of five in Tokyo, Japan, and has since performed as soloist and a chamber pianist in Italy, Germany, and the United States. Recent projects include a collaboration with Nightingale Vocal Ensemble on Andrew List’s Journey of Seasons, duo concerts with acclaimed soprano Rose Hegele. She also recently took part in a residency at UC Davis with award-winning choreographer Jacob Gutiérrez-Montoya and cellist Michael Dahlberg in which they created new works with composition students at UC Davis. Sakurako earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano performance from the Sacramento State School of Music, where she worked as a teaching assistant and administrative assistant for the School of Music’s Piano Series. Her previous teachers include Steinway Artists Richard Cionco, Kirsten Smith, Natsuki Fukasawa, and Tanya Gabrielian. Sakurako recently completed her Graduate Performance Diploma at the Longy School of Music of Bard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as the Barbara Roth Donaldson Scholar where she studied with Grammy-nominated and acclaimed pianist Andrius Žlabys.

Peter London is Chancellor and Professor of Art, emeritus, of the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. He has exhibited his paintings from 1960 to the present nationally and internationally in galleries and museums in New York City, Boston, Montreal, Baltimore, Davis, Woodland, Sacramento, and his work is included in many public and private collections, including at Columbia University, the Maryland Institute’s College of Art, University of Massachusetts, Musée d’art contemporaine, and Concordia University in Montreal.

Peter has authored several books on art and the creative processes, No More Secondhand Art, Drawing Closer to Nature, Step Outside; Community Based Art Education, and a forthcoming publication, “On The Practice of Art.” He has also published many professional articles on art and its teaching, founded and edited several journals on the same, including: Artizein, a journal devoted to alternative voices and views in the the teaching of the arts; Concerning the Spiritual in Art Education; and Exemplary Art Curriculum, published by the National Art Education Association. In addition to his university teaching where he was the founding chair of the Art Education Department, he has taught and lectured in universities and arts centers across North and South America, Europe, Israel, and Japan.

In his recent work, London explores the soulful dimension: “Everybody talks about the soul but no one seems to have ever seen the soul, and so I thought that might be a good thing to do; to investigate the look of the soul of things . . . to explore what happens to me—through my artwork, when I go into the world—more exactly, go into my studio, thinking about, ‘If indeed everything does have a soulful dimension, what might that appear as to me?’”

He and his wife share their year between Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, and Davis, California.

Ryan Suleiman was born to Lebanese and midwestern parents in Sacramento, California. His music engages with dreaming, the natural world, and the understated beauty of everyday life. His one-act chamber opera, Moon, Bride, Dogs, was described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “a gem” with “an aesthetic that is at once so strange and so accessible.” While his artistic interests vary, he seeks ways of conveying the simultaneity of beauty and dread that characterizes our times. To this end, he is currently working on a portrait concert in collaboration with The Fourth Wall Ensemble called Symbiosis, which embraces the connection between theatricality and classical music. This project, which also includes a new work, will be premiered at Boston Conservatory at Berklee in Spring 2025.

Other recent projects include an art song for soprano Rose Hegele, and an opera called The School for Girls Who Lost Everything in the Fire, with writer Cristina Fríes (M.F.A. creative writing ‘19), which was developed with the support of West Edge Opera. Ryan completed his Ph.D. at UC Davis and his bachelor’s degree at the Sacramento State School of Music. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Berklee College of Music and has held teaching positions at Sacramento State and UC Davis. He also teaches composition privately. Ryan currently resides in Boston with his partner and three furry animals. More information is available at www.ryansuleiman.com.