Kyle Farley-Robinson, left, Jon Hays, center, and Dr. Alexander Tutunov play “Romance And Waltz For Six Hands Piano” by Sergei Rachmaninoff during the Juneau Piano Series featuring Dr. Tutunov at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center on Friday, Jan. 18, 2019. (Michael Penn / Juneau Empire File)

Kyle Farley-Robinson, left, Jon Hays, center, and Dr. Alexander Tutunov play “Romance And Waltz For Six Hands Piano” by Sergei Rachmaninoff during the Juneau Piano Series featuring Dr. Tutunov at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center on Friday, Jan. 18, 2019. (Michael Penn / Juneau Empire File)

Making a Liszt, playing it twice as opener for JAHC piano concert series

Works by Hungarian composer featured in solo performance by series’ artistic director.

This story has been corrected to note the Nov. 12 concert is at 3 p.m., not 7 p.m.

With snow starting to descend down the caps of Juneau’s mountains, it’s fitting Jon Hays is opening with something of a peaks performance to begin the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council’s Piano Series that starts Saturday and continues with additional concerts through next May.

Hays, artistic director of the series, will perform two works by 19th-century composer and pianist Franz Liszt that explore plenty of rugged musical terrain, highlighted by “Years of Pilgrimage: The Swiss Year.” The concert is scheduled at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center.

“This set of nine pieces is based on the young composer’s time spent in Switzerland and is practically a journal full of references to physical locations, such as the Chapel of William Tell, lakes and rural villages, to literary influences to the bell towers of Geneva that Liszt would have heard as his daughter Blandine was born,” Hays wrote in an email response to questions Thursday. “It’s a gorgeous and varied program that encompasses many different moods and experiences.”

The second piece by Liszt is “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6,” which Hays describes as “more representative of Liszt’s brilliance and virtuosity as a pianist.”

“At the end I have to play rapid octaves in the right hand for nearly two minutes,” Hays wrote.

The series, intended to highlight the JACC’s piano and piano music in general, will feature other musicians making return appearances. Among them is Mei Xue, who will join Hays in a performance scheduled at 3 p.m. Nov. 12 that commemorates the 150th anniversary year of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s birth.

”Mei will play the early Opus 3 pieces, which include an Elegie, the famous prelude in C-Sharp Minor and a Melodie,” Hays wrote. “Next, Mei and I will trade off playing eight different Preludes from Rachmaninoff’s Opus 23, and then we will end the program with two piano four-hands pieces, Barcarolle and Slava from 6 morceaux, Opus 11.”

In keeping with the theme of the series, Hays said the opening two concerts “showcase two pivotal composers for the piano, not just that they contributed to the repertoire, but that they transformed the potential of what a piano is even capable of.”

Other scheduled performers, with the programs to be determined, are:

Feb. 10: Kyle Farley-Robinson and Jia Jia Maas, who Hays said are both Juneau residents who married during the past year, and will perform solo and piano four-hand pieces.

Feb. 16: Hays again in a solo performance.

May. 19: Greek pianist Ioanna Nikou.

May. 25: Joseph Yungen, accompanied by violinist Yue Sun.

Tickets for the fall concerts are now available at the JAHC website at www.jahc.org, by calling (907) 586-2787, or at the JACC at 350 Whittier St. Tickets for the February concerts will be available in January, and for the May concerts in April.

Ticket prices are $25 for general admission, $20 for seniors and $10 for students. Tickets will be available at the door for $5 more.

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.

More in News

(Juneau Empire file photo)
Aurora forecast through the week of April 13

These forecasts are courtesy of the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute… Continue reading

Tina Martin, left and her daughter, Isabelle, 17, clean trash from a stream along Back Loop Road on Saturday. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
Carcasses, recliners and butts all part of a bustling annual Juneau spring cleaning

Cleanups throughout town include newcomers and those participating for decades.

The Norwegian Bliss docks downtown on Monday, April 14, 2025. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire file photo)
Juneau’s leaders to discuss city’s long-term future, cruise industry in series of public meetings

Four sessions on CBJ’s 20-year plan on Tuesday and Wednesday; Assembly and cruise leaders meet Thursday.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy and other state of Alaska officials pose for a photo with Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, center, and other government officials during Dunleavy’s trip to Taiwan last month. (Taiwan Office of the President photo)
Alaska’s governor flew to Taiwan to sell LNG. China’s not happy.

China says Dunleavy’s trip “sends a very wrong signal to the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces.”

A polar bear is spotted on a multiyear ice floe in the Beaufort Sea on Aug. 13, 2023. The Trump administration is planning to designate a new “High Arctic” region off Alaska for offshore oil and gas leasing. (Photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Scott Bice/U.S. Coast Guard)
Trump administration plans offshore oil leasing in Alaska’s ‘High Arctic’

Multiyear program will include a reconfigured Arctic area where future lease sales will be held.

Josh Chevalier, chief engineer of the MV Columbia, shows legislators the engine control room, and explains the control and monitoring systems on Tuesday, April 8, 2025. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire)
‘Out of sight, out of mind’: Engineers are the ones who keep state ferries moving

Challenges of workforce recruitment and retention persist in globally competitive maritime industry.

(Michael Penn / Juneau Empire file photo)
Police calls for Monday, April 14, 2025

This report contains public information from law enforcement and public safety agencies.

(Michael Penn / Juneau Empire file photo)
Police calls for Tuesday, April 15, 2025

This report contains public information from law enforcement and public safety agencies.

Most Read