tickets $35 | $20

Festival Passes on sale October 16, 2023. 
Single tickets on sale in 2024. ​
Off the Bench: Songs from the Pianist Perspective, the third concert of the Shores of Song Festival, centers the pianist perspective in art song, inviting the audience to enjoy the multi-talented collaborators who perform with vocalists from the piano bench. Fourth Coast Ensemble singers perform pieces programmed by four guest pianists: John Bitoy, Alan Darling, Yasuko Oura, and Marianne Parker.  The four pianists each select 20 minutes of songs that are meaningful, important, or interesting to them, and join a discussion hosted by Oliver Camacho (WFMT).
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The concert duration is 2 hours and includes a 10 minute intermission.  Audience members are invited to join the artists for a complimentary reception following the performance.
Please note this event is not a function of Roosevelt University.

ARTISTS

​John Bitoy is an Afro Dominican pianist from Chicago.  He has completed a bachelors in piano performance at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in 2017, and a Masters in piano performance at DePaul university in 2019.  since then, he has collaborated with many musicians and participated in many performances.  Most recently and notable, he has recorded and premiered several pieces from Steve Wallace’s solo piano and chamber compositions in 2020, and will record his opera in 2021.  He did numerous chamber performances in the 2019 Gateways music festival.  He has performed with Sigur Ros during their 2019 United States Tour. He has performed Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto with the South Loop Symphony, and Symphony of Oak Park in 2019 and 2020.  He enjoys playing standard repertoire, but finds it equally enjoyable and important to bring to life the new music of composers of the African Diaspora.
Scottish pianist Alan Darling has performed throughout the United States and Canada and Europe, collaborating with artists such as Jamie Barton, Nicole Cabell, Brandon Jovanovich, Christiane Karg, Amanda Majeski, Susanna Phillips, Matthew Polenzani, Amber Wagner and Erin Wall. He is a member of the Mirror Visions Ensemble, with whom he has premiered works by Christopher Berg, Tom Cipullo, Russell Platt and Scott Wheeler. Mr. Darling began his teaching career at Yale University. He is now on the faculty of Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, where he teaches art song repertoire classes and is head coach for the opera productions. He has been a faculty member of Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Opera Center, San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program and Ravinia Steans Musical Institute. Mr. Darling received degrees from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, the Royal Academy of Music and the University of Michigan.
Pianist Marianne Parker’s playing has been described as “a cut above” (Chicago Classical Review). Her debut album, Pages intimes, released in early 2019, features recently re-discovered works by Haitian composers. Marianne has curated an anthology of 21st century works for solo piano through NewMusicShelf and co-founded the marimba and piano new music ensemble, L+M Duo, in 2016 along with marimbist Laurel Black. The duo was featured in Chamber Music Magazine; performed at the Nief-Norf New Music Festival in Knoxville, TN; and produced a public concert in Chicago to celebrate the centennial of the iconic Wrigley Building. A fierce advocate of New Music, Parker is in demand as a collaborator for instrumentalists and vocalists alike. She serves as Vice President of New Music Chicago, and co-produces the monthly series New Music Chicago Presents... at the Chicago Cultural Center. Marianne served as the principal pianist for the Chicago Civic Orchestra.
Pianist Yasuko Oura has been praised for her sensibility and passion for collaborating with others. She is a lecturer of collaborative piano at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music and recently joined the faculty at DePaul University to start a new collaborative piano program. She regularly works for Lyric Opera of Chicago and Chicago Opera Theater, and is on the music staff for Des Moines Metro Opera. Recent operatic highlights include King Roger by Szymanowski and Britten’s Albert Herring for Chicago Opera Theater. She has enjoyed performances with David Portillo, Susanna Phillips, Anthony McGill, and was featured on a fortepiano in the production of the Chevalier centered around the music of Joseph Bologne for the Music of the Baroque. Ms. Oura has performed at Carnegie Hall’s Weil Recital Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Merkin Hall and is the co-artistic director of Chamber Music at Bethany concert series. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and master’s and doctoral degrees from the Juilliard School.

about the venue

Now a National Historic Landmark, the Auditorium Building has been a cornerstone of Chicago’s arts and cultural community since its opening in 1889. A crown jewel of famed architects Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan, with a young Frank Lloyd Wright as draftsman, the Auditorium Building was the first mixed-use building ever built and the tallest in Chicago when it opened. More than 125 years later, its gilded inner spaces still sparkle for events of all kinds.

During construction, one important detail was forgotten: a banquet hall. So they suspended the banquet hall over the Auditorium Theater house roof on the 7th floor of the building, and filled it with the best of their collective work: Gold-leaf stenciled arches punctuated with stunning electric chandeliers, 10 distinct mural paintings by French painter Albert Fleury which depict Midwestern and Plains activities, 12 hand-carved wooden capitols (each one unique) topping beautiful tiger maple wood columns. The room is then flanked by 10 unique hand-painted murals and 17 stained glass windows. The hall is one of our city’s ultimate examples of artistic collaboration.

​In 2003, Ganz Hall received the  Chicago Landmark Award for Preservation Excellence , and in 2005 was honored with the American Institute of Architects Chicago Design Excellence Award.