NATCHITOCHES – Pianist Sergei Kvitko will present a recital at Northwestern State University on Friday, Jan. 30 at 7:30 p.m. in Magale Recital Hall. Admission is free, and the public is invited to attend. A livestream will be available at www.nsu.la/CAPA-LIVE.
The program, “EXIT MUSIC (for the End of Time),” asks the question “If you knew that the world would end in one hour, what would be your playlist?”
Kvitko said the idea for this program was born out of two existential questions.
“As a church organist at the First Presbyterian Church in Lansing, Michigan, for almost 30 years, I have to play a lot of funeral and wedding services,” said Kvitko. “It is always fascinating to me how people select the music they want to hear at these very different but equally special events. Not to sound morbid, but I started thinking: what would I want to ‘hear’ at my funeral service? What IS my favorite music? And the other question, if I knew that the world would end in an hour, what would I want to play, what would I want to listen to?”
Kvitko will play works by David Biedenbender, Johann Sebastian Bach, Kvitko, Franz Schubert, Olivier Messiaen, Eugène Ysaÿe, Lowell Liebermann, Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Radiohead, Gabriel Fauré and Igor Iachimciuc.
“Thinking of my favorite pieces of music, from ‘Winterreise’ to Mahler’s ‘Adagietto,’ and from Radiohead and Bjork to Bach and Mozart, I quickly realized that none of these works were written for piano,” said Kvitko. “The idea of a recital comprised entirely of transcriptions of the most beautiful music was born, and the work of selecting the pieces and, in some cases.”