ARLENE KIES
Pianist
Arlene
Kies received her early training in Providence, R.I. She attended the New
England Conservatory of Music in Boston on full scholarship, where she studied
with Theodore Lettvin, earning B.M. and M.M. degrees in piano performance with
honors. As a recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, Ms. Kies studied with
Hans Graf in Vienna, Austria. Further studies took her to Sienna, Italy, and
eventually back to Boston, where she worked with pianists Russell Sherman and
Anthony di Bonaventura. In 1988, she was awarded an Individual Artists
Fellowship by the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts.
Ms. Kies has an active performing and teaching career. She has been on the
faculty of Tufts University, taught at Phillips Exeter Academy from 1981-1995,
and has been a member of the University of New Hampshire piano faculty since
1995. She gives frequent master classes and enjoys the lecture-recital format,
having presented such pieces as Bach's Goldberg Variations, Ravel's
Gaspard de la Nuit, and Schumann's Carnaval preceded by informal
discussions of the music. These programs have been among her most popular.
She has appeared on numerous campuses and series, including Tufts University,
U.N.H., York University (Canada), St. Paul's Church, Trinity (Toronto), Harvard,
Brandeis, New York University, The Currier Art Gallery, Ogonquit Festival
(Maine), Strawbery Banke Festival, Amerikahaus (Vienna), Academia Chigiana
(Italy), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, MIT, Jordan Hall, Merkin Recital Hall
(N.Y.), the Reading Pennsylvania Chamber Series, Villanova University, and on
board the luxury liner QE 2. Of her playing, the Boston Globe has written
"…simply extraordinary!".
In addition to her solo performances, Ms. Kies makes frequent chamber music
appearances. She has performed with such artists as David Ripley, James
Maddelena, Sharon Baker, Jenni Carbaugh Cook, Susan Larson, Gloria DePasquale,
Eric Pritchard, Charles Forbes, Nic Orovich, and the DePasquale String Quartet.
Additionally, Ms. Kies performs regularly with her husband, pianist Christopher
Kies. The Kies' have premiered several two-piano compositions (for the Fromm
Foundation at Harvard, the Washington Square Chamber Series, and others); they
perform four-hand and two-piano standard repertoire as well. Recent concerts
have featured the two-piano versions of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and
Petrouchka, as well as two performances of Mozart's Concerto in E flat
for Two Pianos. Highlights of recent seasons included a performance of
the Ravel Piano Concerto in G with the Granite State Orchestra, hailed by
critics as "spectacular", as well as a performance of the Mozart C Minor Piano
Concerto, also with the Granite State Orchestra. In June, 2003, Ms. Kies
traveled to North Carolina with Sospiri for an invitational performance
at the International Double Reed Society Convention, where they performed works
by David Diamond and UNH composer Christopher Kies. Also in June, 2003, Ms. Kies
presented three concerts in Vienna, Austria, with soprano Jenni Carbaugh Cook;
in July, she toured Tuscany with a solo program featuring the complete
Goyescas of Enrique Granados.
In 1999, Ms. Kies released a CD of vocal/piano repertoire with bass-baritone David Ripley. Called "superb" in a recent review, this CD features the music of Ives, Faure, Duparc, Schubert, and Brahms. Ms. Kies and Mr. Ripley's recent recording of songs of Faure and Duparc, Ne Point Passer,will be released on the Centaur label this spring. Other recently released CD's include those of vocal/piano repertoire by women composers with soprano Jenni Carbaugh Cook, and another of wind/piano music with the UNH -based trio Sospiri. Ms. Kies has also completed the recording of a CD of vocal/piano repertoire by women composers with soprano Jenni Carbaugh Cook, and another of wind/piano music with the UNH -based trio Sospiri, both to be released soon.
Arlene resides with her husband, Christopher, a composer and faculty member at
UNH, and their three daughters in Durham, N.H.
Arlene joined the KBHC family in 2006 and it will be a pleasure to welcome her back in 2008!