Classical Concert at Mount St. Mary’s University Features Internationally Known American Pianist Dan Franklin Smith

(9/6) Concert pianist Dan Franklin Smith will perform a classical program at Mount St. Mary University on Sunday, September 10 at 7:30 p.m.  Admission for the event is free.

The recordings of this artist have been widely broadcast throughout the United States. Recently WWFM in Trenton and WQED in Pittsburgh joined the long list of classical stations around the country to broadcast Swiss composer Hans Huber’s Piano Concerti Nos. 1 and 3, recorded by Smith with the Stuttgart Philharmonic under the baton of Michail Jurowsky. The recording was produced by Sterling Grammofonskivor, a Swedish company, and has garnered excellent reviews in Europe and the US.

This disc, as well as Smith’s debut recording of Swedish composer Kurt Atterberg's Piano Concerto, has been broadcast throughout the US, from Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Washington, D.C., St. Paul, Columbus, San Diego, Phoenix--where it was named "CD of the Week" last summer­Connecticut, the entire state of Minnesota, and Mexico.

The American Record Guide, in its September issue, said: "The performances are both brilliant. The American Dan Franklin Smith plays with a real flair for these works." In the UK, musicweb.uk.net wrote: "The considerable strength of this disc lies in a magically performed Third Concerto....This is an example of profundity and sincerity in the silver-plated realms of the romantic piano concerto." And a German review, from Crescendo, called "the interpretive results...remarkable."

In his recording debut featuring the Kurt Atterberg concerto, Smith was hailed by BBC Music Magazine as "a dazzling soloist." Gramophone called him "an ideal exponent" of the concerto and Fanfare praised him for giving it "a rousingly committed and bravura send-off." Records International described the concerto itself as "a full-throated, dizzyingly romantic work from 1927-35 …full of nature lyricism, magic and melancholy …with Nordic harmonies and much brilliant and demanding work for the soloist. No lover of piano concertos can fail to be seduced by this intoxicating work."