This week, Midday Music host Evan Miller interviewed Ariadne Antipa, organizer of the Flight88 concert series at Urban Artifact in Cincinnati. The latest concert in the series, Piano Music from 20th Century France, will be held on October 22nd, and included performances of Ravel, Debussy, Chaminade, and Stravinsky. In the interview, Ariadne talked about why she chose to organize a concert devoted to 20th Century French piano music, and provided a preview of each piece in the program. She also spoke about her special affinity for composer Claude Debussy, who she credits with inspiring her to be a pianist. Piano Music from 20th Century France featured performances from four award-winning pianists: Nicholas Susi, Ji-Hyang Gwak, Yuan Zhuang, and Nuoya Zhang.
Pianist and conductor Ariadne Antipa founded Flight 88 in September, 2022. The concert series is held in the reliquary of Urban Artifacts, a renovated historic church in Cincinnati’s Northside neighborhood that now functions as a brewery and music venue. She describes Flight 88 as a “series in two parts;” half casual, free concerts, half formal, ticketed events. Piano Music from 20th Century France was among this seasons’ ticketed events. Antipa explained that the remarkable diversity of early 20th century French composition inspired her to organize the concert. She told Evan,
“[The audience] can expect a little bit of everything. Which is pretty cool, considering we’re working within a hundred year time period for music that was all coming from the same place. We’re going to get deep romanticism from Chaminade in her Concert Etudes. We’re going to get lush, watery, smooth sounds in the Debussy Images. We’re going to get a lot of angular, spiky sounds from Stravinsky’s Petrushka, and we’re going to race up and down the keyboard with Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit.”
In the interview, Antipa explained the historical context of the works in the program, which were composed during a period of decline in the Salon culture that had dominated elite French social life in the 19th Century. She also explained the personal significance of the composers, particularly Debussy, in her own life. “Debussy is the reason I became a pianist,” she told Evan, “It was through playing Debussy in my middle school years that I felt like a part of me sunk down into the music in this very total way, where I locked onto piano music.”
Piano Music from 20th Century France will be held at 3:00pm on October 22nd. For a full schedule of upcoming events in Flight 88’s 2023 concert series, visit ariadneantipa.com.
Text by Peter Day, adapted from an interview by Evan Miller.
