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St. James Concert Series Continues In Sonora
St. James
Next up in the St. James Concert Series in Sonora will be London pianist Anyssa Neumann performing on Sunday, Feb. 2 at The Red Church. Photo Contributed

London pianist Anyssa Neumann will perform as part of the St. James Concert Series on Sunday, Feb. 2 at The Red Church, 42 Snell St., Sonora.

Raised in California and based in the UK, Neumann has been praised for the “clarity, charm, and equipoise” of her performances, which span solo and collaborative repertoire from the Baroque to the 21st century. Recent highlights include recitals in Rome, Paris, Montreal, Ottawa, Denver, and throughout the Pacific Northwest. A dedicated contrapuntalist, she has given all-Bach recitals at The Banff Centre, the Sacramento Bach Festival, and London’s St James Piccadilly. Her solo debut album was featured on David Dubal’s radio program ‘The Piano Matters’ in New York and Chicago, and a new solo disc of works by Bach, Bach-Busoni, and Dallapiccola is scheduled for release this coming year.

On Sunday, Feb. 2 at 3 p.m., she will be playing works by Bach, Chopin, Wagner-Liszt, Dallapiccola, Pärt, Cerrone, Dicke. Doors open at the Red Church at 2:30 p.m.; tickets can be bought at the door or at Mountain Book Store at $20 per ticket, $5 per student. There will be a reception after the recital to meet the artist.

Neumann performs regularly in the UK with bass-baritone Timothy Dickinson, with a current project exploring Don Quixote-inspired songs and arias. Other recent collaborations have included concerts with soprano Emma Tring and the Alexandra Ensemble, recitals of American art song with mezzo-soprano Katherine Nicholson, and duo recitals with violinist Yolanda Bruno at London’s St Martin-in-the-Fields and Toronto’s Mazzoleni Hall. Neumann has also appeared as recital partner with Grammy Award-winning cellist Sara Sant’Ambrogio (Eroica Trio), as guest pianist with the Sheba Ensemble, and on NPR’s Performance Today and Sirius Satellite Radio. She has held artist residencies at the Banff Centre (Canada), Avaloch Farm (USA), and the Bergman Estate (Sweden).

A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music and University of Oxford, Neumann continued advanced studies with Fabio Bidini in Berlin and Paul Stewart at Université de Montréal, and has additionally worked with Thomas Adès at IMS Prussia Cove. In 2017, she completed a PhD in musicology at King’s College London, focusing on classical music in the films of Ingmar Bergman. She has since toured a lecture-recital based on this work in the UK, Sweden, Spain, Canada, and the United States. In the 2019-20 season, she appears as soloist with the Bridgewater Sinfonia (UK), in recitals of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, and on tour in New Mexico and California with American soprano Rena Harms, with whom she has collaborated since 2004.