Up-And-Coming Pianists Seize The Spotlight

According to the founder and director of the series, the “Rising Stars Piano Series” is misleadingly named.

“I’m thinking about changing the title,” said Liliane Questel during a telephone interview last week. “Many of these pianists are much more than rising stars.”

Take Michael Brown, for instance, who will be opening the series’s ninth season on Saturday, October 1, at the Southampton Cultural Center. At just 24, the Oceanside native has already graced the stages of Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall and has performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Last year, he took first prize in the “Concert Artists Guild” competition, and his original works have been featured at the Tanglewood Music Festival and the Curtis Institute. In 2008, he was commissioned to write a two-piano piece for “Pianofest in the Hamptons” in celebration of its 20th season.

But even though he has already played some lofty venues in his career, coming back to the East End is always a highlight for the young pianist.

“I love going out to the Hamptons,” Mr. Brown said during a telephone interview last week. “It’s a very vibrant community, artistic, and everyone is into the art and what they’re going to see.”

The pianist’s nearly hour-long program will be bookended by Polonaise—the first, in C Major, “Opus 89,” by Ludwig van Beethoven and the last, in A-flat, Opus 53 “Eroica,” by Frédéric Chopin. In between, the pianist will perform Beethoven’s “Sonata in F Major, Opus 54;” three of Claude Debussy’s “Études;” and “Evocación, El Puerto” by Isaac Albéniz.

“It’s a potpourri of things that I love,” he said.

From a young age, Mr. Brown’s passion has been piano. But it didn’t start off that way.

At age 4, he began on violin, he said. Two years later, he insisted that he switch to his instrument of choice.

“My mother thought the piano would be too big for me,” Mr. Brown said. “But my earliest heroes were Billy Joel and Mozart, and they’re very piano-heavy composers. I was exposed to that sound right away, and I responded to it. I wanted to be like them. At that age, you just want to imitate Mozart.”

Now living in Washington Heights, Mr. Brown graduated this year from The Juilliard School with dual bachelor and master’s degrees in piano and composition. He said he will continue to perform and do what he loves most: compose.

“When it grows inside you, you can’t see yourself doing anything else, that’s for sure,” he said. “If I take a day off, or two, I miss it. I think that’s a telling point, that it’s the right thing for me.”

Over the course of the “Rising Stars” series, other accomplished young pianists—Jeewon Lee, Kara Huber, Gilles Vonsattel, Soyeon Lee and Qi Xu—will also take the stage. Last year, each performance brought crowds of approximately 180 concertgoers, according to Ms. Questel, and she said that she expects nothing less this season.

“Michael has the perfect program,” she said. “He’s a kind of, sort of, genius. He’s going to be a phenomenal musician.”

The “Rising Stars Piano Series” will kick off with a performance by Michael Brown on Saturday, October 1, at 7 p.m. at the Southampton Cultural Center. Tickets are $15 and students under 21 are free. Additional performances will include Jeewon Lee on November 1; Kara Huber on December 10; Gilles Vonsattel on April 14; Soyeon Lee on May 5; and Qi Xu on June 9. For tickets or more information, visit southamptonculturalcenter.org.