International Prize-winning Soloists Michaela Paetsch and Susan Merdinger Reunite to Perform All-Beethoven Concerts in Chicago and on Live from WFMT

Chicago, IL, December 19 2017,— Two internationally acclaimed, prize-winning soloists, violinist Michaela Paetsch and pianist Susan Merdinger, join forces to present a concert program featuring four of Beethoven’s Sonatas for Piano and Violin- Nos. 2, 4, 6, and 10.

The concerts will be presented free of charge in three Chicago-area venues for audiences to enjoy this program: 7:00 PM on Friday January 12, 2018 at Covenant Village in Northbrook, IL; 7:00pm on Saturday January 13, 2018 at The Chapel of Our Lord at Concordia University in River Forest; 3 PM on Sunday January 14th at the Northbrook Public Library, Northbrook IL. The fourth performance will be a live broadcast on Live from WFMT, hosted by Kerry Frumkin, and produced by Mary Mazurek, which will also include a live interview with the artists, and can be live-streamed at www.wfmt.com.

Merdinger and Paetsch have recently joined forces performing as a trio and duo after not having seen each other or performed together since the artists were students at the Yale School of Music in the 1980’s. Both hailing from musical families, they share a common bond through their musical heritage and instructional lineage.

Steinway Artist Susan Merdinger, who Fanfare Magazine has hailed for her “magic touch” and for keeping audiences “spellbound from first note to last”, recently performed at the Logan Center for the Arts on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chamber Music Series in her sixth engagement on the CSO series. Merdinger has graced the New York stages of Carnegie and Merkin, as well as many of the finest venues of Europe, Canada and Mexico, performing with orchestras such as The Chicago Philharmonic and the Symphony Orchestra of the State of Mexico. She has appeared live on radio stations such as WQXR and WFMT, as well as BBC Television in the UK, and is a First Prize Winner of the Bradshaw and Buono International Piano Competition, the Artists International Young Musicians Competition and Distinguished Artists Awards, the Dewar’s Young Musicians Award in Music, and a Gold Medal in the Global Music Awards. Merdinger is completing the entire cycle of Sonatas for Piano and Violin and Piano and Cello by Beethoven in an ongoing project for Live from WFMT. A noted interpreter of Beethoven, Schubert, Haydn and Mozart, Merdinger was fortunate to study with some of the world’s expert “Beethoven pianists” such as Claude Frank, Walter Hautzig, and Karl Ulrich Schnabel at Yale University, Manhattan School of Music and privately in New York City. Merdinger currently lives in Highland Park, IL, where she teaches privately and is on the Piano Faculty at Concordia university Chicago in River Forest.

Michaela Paetsch’s playing has been described as “gloriously charged…beguilingly velvety” (The Strad). Her captivating artistry is celebrated for the soaring vitality and the personal commitment she shows her audiences. Michaela garnered international attention and numerous awards, including first prize in the G.B. Dealey International Competition, a bronze medal in the Queen Elisabeth International Competition, and the prize for the Russian Composition by Juri Falik at the International Tchaikovsky Competition. Paetsch has performed as soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician in the major musical centers of the world, including New York’s Carnegie Hall and Avery Fischer Hall, and the Library of Congress (in Washington, D.C.). She has collaborated with major orchestras throughout the world, including the NHK Symphony Orchestra (Japan), the Philharmonics of Osaka (Japan), Seoul (Korea), Liége (Belgium) and Bergen (Norway); the National Orchestra of Belgium, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, the Residentie Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and the BBC Symphony, among others. Her extensive discography began with the 1987 recording of the 24 Caprices by Niccolo Paganini for TELDEC, making her the first female performer to record the complete work. Die Zeit, a German newspaper, described the disc as a “sensation in the history of record-making.” A native of Colorado Springs, CO, Paetsch currently lives in Switzerland and concertizes throughout Europe with various ensembles, including Prima Carezza and the Paetsch Family String Ensemble. Paetsch was a protegé of Szymon Goldberg at the Yale School of Music and the Curtis Institute of Music and Ivan Galamian at the Meadowmount Music Festival.

Concert event details are available at: Concordia University Chicago: 708-209-3062; Northbrook Public Library: 847-272-6224; Live from WFMT: www.wfmt.com; All events listed at https://www.susanmerdingerpianist.com/events

FOR FURTHER INFO:
Jack Price, Founding Managing Director, Price Rubin and Partners
Main Office:
PRI-CER-UBIN
(774-237-8246)
Direct: 310 254 7149
jp@pricerubin.com