From Bach to Gershwin: Chris Staknys and Maya French in Duo

Name: From Bach to Gershwin: Chris Staknys and Maya French in Duo
Start: 2026-04-30T19:00:00-04:00
Location: 1342 Congress Street, Portland, ME, United States, Maine 04102

Schedule

Thu, 30 Apr, 2026 at 07:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

1342 Congress Street, Portland, ME, United States, Maine 04102 | Portland, ME

Join us for an inspiring and intimate chamber music experience, featuring two of Maine's finest young musicians! This dynamic duo will perform works by William Grant Still, J.S. Bach, Sam Wu, Johannes Brahms, and George Gershwin.
Our program traces a wide expressive arc for violin and piano, moving between intimacy, virtuosity, and rhythmic vitality, performed by Maya French on violin and Chris Staknys on piano. William Grant Still’s Suite for Violin and Piano opens with the tender second movement, Mother and Child, offering a moment of warmth and reflection. J.S. Bach’s Concerto in A Minor follows with its final Allegro assai. In Travelogues, Sam Wu brings a contemporary voice to the program, shaping a sonata that suggests motion and shifting landscapes through an exploration of color. The centerpiece is Brahms’s expansive Sonata No. 2 in A Major, which balances lyric ease and emotional depth across three contrasting movements, from the gracious Allegro amabile to the playful, dance like finale. The program concludes with the unmistakable spirit of George Gershwin in Three Songs, including The Man I Love, Fascinating Rhythm, and I Got Rhythm in an arrangement by Chris Staknys.