Saturdays with Classics

with Stefan Koch, cello & Robert Conway, piano

Saturday, december 2, 2023
2:00 PM 

General Admission - $20
Steinway Society Members - $15

Ages 18 & Under - $10
No Reservations Necessary.
Cash or check, payable at the door

 

featuring Four Fantasy Pieces, Op. 17 & Sonata for Cello & Piano, Op. 49 by Richard Stöhr
(also featuring a visual presentation and discussion of Stöhr's life)

Stefan Koch received his musical training at Temple University in Philadelphia, where he studied with Hirofumi Kanno and Orlando Cole.  He formerly held positions as a national buyer of both books and CDs for Borders Books and Music, and he also has a Master’s Degree in Philosophy from the University of Michigan.  Returning to full-time performing in 2001, Mr. Koch is a member of both the Lansing Symphony and the Jackson Symphony and is a frequent performer with the Kalamazoo Symphony, West Michigan Symphony, Toledo Symphony, Detroit Opera and Grand Rapids Symphony.  In 2004, 2006 and 2007, he toured the US and Canada with the Carl Rosa Opera Company (London, UK), and since 2007, has been spending his summers at the Utah Festival Opera, in Logan, Utah, where he is Principal Cello.  In 2012, Mr. Koch undertook a series of recitals which were the first US performances of the Cello and Piano Music of the exiled Jewish Viennese composer Richard Stöhr.  A CD of this music, with pianist Robert Conway, came out in August 2014 on the Toccata Classics label (London, UK). A second CD containing Stöhr's "Piano Trio Op. 16" and "Three Songs for Voice, Cello and Piano Op. 21" was released by the same label in January, 2018.  A third CD featuring a "String Quartet and Suite for Piano, Violin, Flute and Cello," from Stöhr’s US years, was released by the same label in January, 2020.  Outside of the classical realm, he has also performed with Sarah Brightman, Anne Murray, Barbara Cook, Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach, Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme, Garrison Keillor, Dave Brubeck, The Boys Choir of Harlem, Mannheim Steamroller, Bernadette Peters, Amy Grant, the Von Trapp Family, Doc Severinsen, Earth Wind & Fire, and Julius “Dr. J.” Erving.  He has also contributed music to the Showtime television movie “The Staircase Murders” (2007) and the French horror film “House of Voices” (2005) and also appeared in a Toyota Highlander television commercial.  He is a long-time resident of Ann Arbor, MI.

Robert Conway is an associate professor of piano and music history at Wayne State University, where he is also the director of the piano area. Since 1989, he has performed regularly as orchestral keyboardist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and has been a soloist with them on several occasions. He has been a musical representative of the United States as an Artistic Ambassador of the United States Information Agency on a month-long tour of South Asia and the Middle East in 1997, as well as acting as a Department of State Cultural Envoy to Jamaica in 2005 and Azerbaijan in 2008. As a soloist and chamber musician, he has appeared at numerous national and international festivals, performed concertos with many orchestras, collaborated with prestigious composers, given countless premieres and is featured on several recordings on a variety of labels.

Conway received a bachelor's degree in piano performance from the New England Conservatory and master's and doctoral degrees in piano performance from the University of Michigan. His principal teachers were Theodore Lettvin, Rudolf Kolisch and Eugene Bossart.