Where Great Artists Play It Forward
Altamura Legacy Concerts was created to feature world class artists who are close colleagues and collaborators of pianist Cristina Altamura. They stop in Princeton between tour engagements to perform, teach masterclasses, and mentor LAI’s Youth Ambassadors.
The series’ success depends heavily on the enthusiasm of a community of volunteers who have supported this educational concept over the last three seasons.
The name of this series reflects the legacy of Cristina’s parents. She continues to curate the fifty-year history of their philanthropic organization Inter-Cities Performing Arts, Inc. which launched the careers of many globally recognized opera singers, conductors, and musicians via grants, commissions, competition prizes, and worldwide performance opportunities. The company is best known for the Altamura/Caruso International Voice Competition, founded in 1988 by Cristina’s mother, soprano Carmela Altamura.
The first concert on Sunday, November 1st at 4pm will take place in Lee Hall at the Lewis Center for the Arts located on the University Campus at 122 Alexander Rd. with a unique version of J.S Bach’s Goldberg Variations arranged for two pianos by the 19thcentury composer Josef Rheinberger. Altamura will be joined by Italian pianist Gianluca Luisi, first-prize winner of the 4th International J.S. Bach Competition. The pair have toured this monumental work in Italy. Bringing it to Princeton offers an opportunity for local “Goldberg enthusiasts” to hear it in this rarely heard and powerful arrangement.
On Saturday, January 23rd at 5pm, Altamura Legacy Concerts will be hosted by Steinway and Sons Gallery at its Princeton Showroom. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Yiyun Li reads excerpts from her forthcoming book Music Against the Night, a work of historical fiction that dramatizes the life of composer John Field in the 19th century and Altamura performs Nocturnes by John Field and Frederick Chopin. For two years, Li has been studying piano with Cristina Altamura in Princeton while writing this new book. Their relationship in the piano studio provided inspiration for Li’s descriptions of piano pedagogy and the music industry in early 19th-century Europe. Q & A will follow moderated by Sō Percussion’s Adam Sliwinski.
Altamura and Li will also take the program to Rome in March as part of Li’s Rome Prize residency at the American Academy.
On Sunday, May 30th at 4pm, the program features 18-year-old cellist Daniel Dorn visiting Princeton from London’s Royal Academy of Music. This concert is part of a US tour to promote his debut album of J.S. Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suites which will be released on Evidence Classics in May 2027.
This event is rounded out with a quartet of young pianists performing Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story Suite” arranged for 8-hands by Jazz composer Derwyn Holder.