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Artist
Donald Betts
12+ albums
classicpianoClassicalamerican
about
Donald Betts has produced over a hundred original piano pieces, songs, and chamber works. His recent recording, Soundings: Piano Works of Donald Betts (Centaur, RC 2332), was highly recommended in the May/June 1998 American Record Guide as "seductively dreamlike and sensuous", filled with "mystery and rapture". His music has been performed in such diverse locations as Ireland, Mexico, Siberia, and Sarajevo, as well as numerous locations throughout the US. Betts made his New York piano recital debut when he was 21, performing his own music as well as works of Schumann, Liszt, and Prokofieff. Musical America cited his "tremendous technique and bravura style", and The New York Times called him a pianist of "imagination and poetic feeling" who "put his soul into his performances." A month later he was drafted into the US. Army and spent ten months touring parts of Japan as a piano soloist with the 289th Army Band, performing Grieg, Beethoven and Gershwin. Returning to civilian life, he won the Concert Artist Guild award and presented two more NYC recitals at Town Hall and Carnegie Recital Hall. He then won a fellowship for the Indiana University School of Music. He took a professorship at Macalester College, teaching piano and music history and philosophy. He co-founded the Macalester Trio, whose repertoire included almost all the standards, as well as numerous unusual and nearly forgotten works, and many contemporary commissons. Their recording Chamber Works by Women Composers
top songs
1
Chopin - Ballade No 1 in g minor (Op 23)
3202Painted Shadows of Childhood: III. A Child's Dance
2823Painted Shadows of Childhood: I. Awakening
2604Chopin - Nocturne in Eb major (Op 55 No 2)
2265Chopin - Etude in c minor (Op 25 No 12)
1896Chopin - Nocturne in E major (Op 62 No 2)
1887Chopin - Etude in Ab major (Op 25 No 1)
1738Chopin - Etude in Ab major (WoO)
1719Chopin - Mazurka in a minor (Op 13)
16910Chopin - Ballade No 4 in f minor (Op 52)
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