Piano recital by Andrea Padova (March 17)

This piano recital is sponsored by the Italian Cultural Institute (one of our partners for the Medici Florence program) as part of a Spring Festival of Italian Music. Looks like you might get in for free by mentioning the email announcement or printing out this item.

Italian pianist Andrea Padova made his name as the winner of the J.S.Bach International Piano Competition in 1995 and with a highly regarded recording of Bach-Busoni transcriptions. His return recital in San Francisco includes a Bach masterpiece, Ouverture in the French Style, Schumann rarely played and highly poetic Intermezzi op. 4, and the first book of Preludes & Interludes, an interesting cycle alternating Bach and Padova short pieces.

Admission: $15 general / $7 IIC members Free entry with this email message

Part of Primavera Italiana – the Spring Festival of Italian Music – curated by Luciano Chessa.

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Information

Date: Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Time: 6:30 pm

Location: Istituto Italiano di Cultura

Organized by: Istituto Italiano di Cultura

Short list of recommended resources for Medici Florence

If you would like to learn a little more about our topic, but don't have a lot of extra time to invest, try some of these resources. Jerry Brotton's The Renaissance: A Very Short Introduction (2006, 148pp., also available in Kindle format) puts the period in the broadest possible context, emphasizing often neglected aspects like the influence of Byzantine and Islamic cultures and the role of new technologies like the printing press. The Renaissance – In a Nutshell by Peter Whitfield provides a concise and insightful summary of the Italian Renaissance, with special emphasis on Florence, in a 72-minute audiobook (2009). If you don't mind the melodramatic presentation style, PBS has a four-part video series on The Medici, Godfathers of the Renaissance as part of its Empires series (3 hours, 40 minutes, available through Netflix). It provides a solid introduction to our topic, and features our Friday night speaker, Dale Kent, as one of the academic commentators. If art is your primary interest, A. Richard Turner's Renaissance Florence: The Invention of a New Art provides a lavishly illustrated introduction (1997, 176pp.). Finally, an excellent web site Renaissance – Focus on Florence provides a wealth of background material aimed at teachers under the umbrella of Annenberg Media's Learner.org (http://www.learner.org/interactives/renaissance/florence.html).