Awadagin Pratt performs with the San Diego Symphony April 13-15. Photo courtesy of San Diego Symphony.
“Since winning prestigious competitions in the early 1990s, pianist Awadagin Pratt has played and recorded works by Bach and Beethoven and other legendary composers,” writes Beth Wood in Sunday’s (4/9) San Diego Union-Tribune. “But this versatile pianist/conductor/educator is also committed to performing new music. His upcoming album, ‘Still Point,’ will feature commissioned works by seven living composers. Pratt will join the San Diego Symphony here for concerts Thursday through Saturday to perform the Jessie Montgomery-composed Rounds for Piano and String Orchestra, which is on the album….Pratt’s ‘Still Point’ album includes music by four African-American composers, two women and two White men. Their median age is around 45, although Latvia’s Peteris Vasks is 76. The album is set for release in August…. Said Pratt, ‘It’s incumbent upon performers to play the works and be advocates for the composers whose works 100 years from now will be regarded as masterpieces. Because they are.’… Last year, Pratt conducted New York’s adventurous Bang on a Can Orchestra. He sometimes combines piano recitals with conducting, which he has done with the Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh and Miami Valley Symphony Orchestra. In June, he will conduct and perform in Tbilisi, Georgia.”
