Brahms and Rachmaninoff with Shunta Morimoto, Scott Dunn, Nathan Le & the Four Seasons Orchestra

This Concert is Presented by Parnassus Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing classical music, opera and art to Southern California. 

”Music has always been my first, and strongest, language to communicate with people from different countries and backgrounds.” - Shunta Morimoto

”[Scott Dunn] is a conductor of great promise… All of the elements (of the concerto) came together to give the audience an experience closer to heaven than most of us will get in this lifetime.” - The East Hampton Star

FEATURED ARTISTS:

Shunta Morimoto, piano
Nathan Le, cello
The Four Seasons Orchestra
Scott Dunn, conductor

PROGRAM:

ARDOR IMMORTALE

RACHMANINOFF Sonata in G minor for Cello and Piano
     Lento - Allegro moderato
     Allegro scherzando
     Andante
     Allegro mosso

INTERMISSION

BRAHMS Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15
     Maestoso
     Adagio
     Rondo: Allegro
 

SHUNTA MORIMOTO
Shunta Morimoto was born in Kyoto, Japan, in December 2004. From a very early age he showed remarkable pianistic gifts. At the age of twelve, he won the prestigious first prize of the Piano Teachers Association of Japan, as well as the Fukuda Scholarship Award, one of the most important prizes for a Japanese musician today. This scholarship allowed him to study with some of the leading pianists and pedagogues in the world. He took part in the Van Cliburn Junior Competition in Dallas, Texas, in May 2019 to much public acclaim and his extraordinary performances went viral on the internet, gaining him a large global following of admirers, musicians and critics.

Since then he has performed with leading chamber ensembles, musicians and orchestras in Japan and abroad. In November 2021, the phenomenal success of his recital in the historic hall of Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome was one of the highlights of his early career. In February 2022, at the age of 17, amongst over 300 competitors, he was awarded unanimously the first prize in the Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition playing the Schumann Piano Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

He currently studies with Maestro William Grant Naboré at the world famous International Piano Academy Lake Como and participates in the Masterclasses of the Academy as the youngest student in the history of this venerable institution. He has since been awarded the Yamaha Scholarship for his studies at Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome, where he is enrolled in the class of Piano Accompaniment with Maestro Giovanni Velluti.

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SCOTT DUNN
Noted for his advocacy of American and contemporary music, conductor, arranger and pianist Scott Dunn has a special interest in cross-over and film composers – ranging from George Gershwin and Richard Rodney Bennett to Leonard Rosenman and Danny Elfman. As conductor, Dunn has served as Associate Conductor for the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra since 2012 and previously held positions at Pittsburgh, Glimmerglass and New York City Operas. He also serves as music director for the Parnassus Society and regularly presents opera in concert at the Soka Performing Arts Center with his Parnassus Society Orchestra.

He has appeared with the Atlanta Symphony, BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Russian Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony, Vienna Radio Orchestra (RSO) and countless other distinguished ensembles. Dunn has collaborated with numerous headliners, including Trey Anastasio, Beck, Chris Botti, Bill Charlap, Billy Childs, Elvis Costello, Il Divo, Danny Elfman, David Foster, Sutton Foster, The Indigo Girls, Sean Lennon, Claire Martin, Steve Martin, Leslie Odom Jr. and Rufus Wainwright among others.

Dunn’s interest in music outside the usual classical canon can be traced to his long friendship with the late Sir Richard Rodney Bennett. Through Bennett, Dunn discovered the concert works of song-writer and composer Vernon Duke (a.k.a. Vladimir Dukelsky) whose ‘lost’ piano concerto (written for Rubinstein) Dunn orchestrated and premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1999. In 2007 he recorded the piano concerto with other Duke works with the Russian Philharmonic (Naxos,2007). In 2012 he edited the Vernon Duke Songbook for Hal Leonard and in 2013 he reconstructed Duke’s THE END OF ST. PETERSBURG oratorio for performance in St. Petersburg Russia. Other Duke recordings include violin concerto and complete works for violin with Elmira Darvarova (Urlicht 2015) and a ‘new’ Duke musical MISIA (PS Classics, 2015) arranged and adapted by Dunn with orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick and a brilliant cast headed by Marin Mazzie. More recently Dunn adapted and performed his own arrangements of Julius Eastman’s GAY GUERILLA (2018) for four pianos and Duke Ellington’s NEW WORLD A-COMIN’ for solo piano and chamber jazz ensemble (2019). In 2023, Stunt records released the much anticipated and highly praised recording, I WATCH YOU SLEEP, with Claire Martin and the Royal Philharmonic. It’s a highly personal tribute created by Dunn and Martin for their friend Richard Rodney Bennett and consists of Bennett’s own jazz songs as well as his favorite standards to play and sing – all orchestrated and conducted by Dunn and gorgeously sung by Claire Martin with the Royal Philharmonic.

Dunn’s interest in film music stems from his friend and mentor, Leonard Rosenman, whose brilliant score for REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955) Dunn arranged for live orchestra to film for premiere in 2016 with the LA Philharmonic at Disney Hall. He often conducts REBEL and other live orchestra-to-film concerts through out the US and Europe. His work with contemporary film composers, includes Rachel Portman, for whom he conducted the BBC Philharmonic in MIMI AND THE MOUNTAIN DRAGON (Decca, 2019) for world-wide annual Christmas BBC broadcasts; with Lior Rosner for whom he recorded SUGAR PLUM ON THE RUN with the Royal Philharmonic and Jeremy Irons (Sony, 2019) and with Danny Elfman, for whom he worked on DANNY ELFMAN’S MUSIC FROM THE FILMS OF TIM BURTON and has conducted around the world – as well as work on other Elfman concert works including his 2008 ballet RABBIT AND ROGUE for Twyla Tharp and the American Ballet Theatre.

As a pianist, Dunn has recorded and concertized extensively. Early in his career he toured Eastern Europe for the USIA and introduced former states of the Soviet Union to many twentieth century American works including Ives’ CONCORD SONATA. In 2024 Dunn will premiere a new rhapsody for piano and orchestra commissioned from composer Joby Talbot Born and raised in Iowa, Dunn studied piano with the legendary Byron Janis and is a former assistant to Lukas Foss – whose complete solo piano works Dunn recorded (Naxos, 2007). He has had a remarkably extensive education, which, in addition to music degrees, includes an M.D., residency and board certification in eye surgery.