Boal Mansion Changes Its Tune for August 11 Concert/Reception

 (Boalsburg, PA) -  Every May since 1979, the Boal Mansion Museum has offered the community classical music, champagne, and abundant hors d’oeuvres from local restaurants, all at a $75 ticket price to raise funds both for historic preservation and more recently also for Penn State’s “Music at Penn’s Woods.”

That’s not what the Museum is offering on this August 11.

“We’re changing our tune,” says Museum CEO Christopher Lee. “For this special summer event, we’re offering a different, summer version of our spring musicale that will be scaled down but revved up for a broader audience.”

What’s different?

For starters, the ticket price is only $10, with a special $5 ticket price for students. Desserts will be offered prepared by Lee’s daughter Maggie and other volunteers. There will be punch but no champagne, and dress and the ambience for the summer event will be decidedly more low key and casual.

What’s the same?

“Great classical music,” says Lee. “We have Ian Boswell, an extremely talented magna cum laude 23-year-old pianist who will play Beethoven, Bach, Chopin and Ravel on the Museum’s Steinway, as well as his own composition and an improvisation in the classical tradition.”

Ian Boswell grew up in State College, Pennsylvania, and has been playing piano since the age of six. He graduated from the Delta Program of the State College Area School District in 2005 and then earned a B.A. in Music from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, graduating magna cum laude in 2009, and receiving the Walter. A Lienke Endowed Prize, given to an outstanding student majoring in music.

Boswell then spent the month of July 2009 in Paris studying counterpoint and composition through the European American Musical Alliance and he will be pursuing a Master's degree in piano performance starting in the fall of 2011.

Boswell is no stranger to the Boal Mansion or its Steinway. He guided tours and mowed lawns at the Museum in the summer of 2008.

Photo (left) caption: Pianist Ian Boswell, shown at the Steinway piano in the 1898 ballroom of the Boal Mansion, will perform works by Beethoven, Bach, Chopin and more at a concert/reception at the Boal Mansion on Wednesday, August 11, 2010 at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $10 ($5 for students).

“I’ve wanted to hear Ian stretch out on the museum’s Steinway ever since he worked here and would occasionally tickled the ivories during breaks,” says Museum CEO Christopher Lee. “He’s really good.”

The August 11 event is designed to give Boswell that opportunity to stretch out and the ticket price of $10 adults/$5 students will allow more of the pianist’s young friends in State College to attend, as well as the Boal Mansion’s regular patrons and sponsors who are accustomed to paying much more to attend the May fund raising event.

The Program:

Maurice Ravel, Sonatine (3 movements) 12”

Ian Boswell, Alone in Cork 5”

J.S. Bach, Prelude and Fugue No. 8 in D Sharp Minor 10”

John Adams, China Gates 5”

Frederic Chopin, Ballade No. 3 in A Flat Major 8”

Intermission

Ludwig van Beethoven, Sonata Op. 110 in A Flat Major (3 movements) 25”

Improvisation 15”

 The first half of the concert will showcase a diversity of styles and perspectives. Ravel's Sonatine, an imaginative work, shows his fascination with extended harmonies, machines, and the antique. Ian Boswell's own Alone in Cork is a journey through unfamiliar territory – new, invigorating, but yearning for home. J.S. Bach's Prelude and Fugue No. 8 in D Sharp Minor is a deep, slow, inner battle, the working-through of a dire dilemma. John Adams' China Gates is a flowing exploration in a moving landscape. Chopin's Ballade No. 3 in A Flat Major is soulful, yearning, passionate, and bursting with life and energy!

  The second half features Beethoven's Op. 110 Sonata in A Flat Major, his second-to-last piano sonata. In it, he explores the deepest realms of consciousness and human struggle. The concert will end with an improvisation by the pianist – an exploration into an art which was once the bread and butter of classical musicians.

This summer version of “Music at the Boal Mansion” features two one-hour sessions of 20 minutes eating and drinking and 40 minutes of sitting and listening, for a total of two hours. It takes place on Wednesday, August 11, 2010, at 7:30 p.m. at the Boal Mansion, 163 Boal Estate Drive in Boalsburg. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students and benefit historic preservation and the performer. For reservations, contact the Boal Mansion Museum at 814-466-6210 or office@boalmuseum.com. For details, access http://boalmuseum.com.