Ann DuHamel - Prayers for a Feverish Planet

Pianist Ann DuHamel presents “Prayers for a Feverish Planet,” her current project with new and recently composed music about the climate crisis. This program will feature a selection of works; the entire venture encompasses more than sixty new pieces for piano and piano/electronics by composers on six continents, and in the spirit of eco-artivism, asks urgent questions of the listener: How do our actions generate positive change for the environment? How can we live more mindfully and conscientiously as global citizens? What sustainable impact can we create for generations to come? Audience members will hear vanishing shorelines echoed in vanishing notes, cracking Arctic ice, and music that reflects on grief, hope, and more.

Pianist Ann DuHamel’s performances have been praised as poetic and “… a delight for the ears and the soul” (Encuentro Universitario Internacional de Saxofón, Mexico City). She has performed in 17 countries, including concerts at Sala Verdi in Milan, Italy; the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland; Carnegie Weill Recital Hall in New York; and Trinity College in Oxford, England. Hailed as a “forward-thinking classical pianist” (Midwest Record) for her debut album Rückblick: New Piano Music Inspired by Brahms (Furious Artisans, 2020), Ann actively champions contemporary composers, recently commissioning works by Flannery Cunningham, Jocelyn Hagen, and Edie Hill, among others. Piano Magazine applauded “the depth of programming and playing” in Rückblick, admiring Ann’s “range of sound and full melodic tone,” as well as her “clear voicing and vibrant sense of color.” Dr. Brahms’s Book of Rags, which appears on the album, was a finalist in The American Prize in Piano Performance, 2021, and received a Special Judges’ Citation: “Championing the Music of Marc Chan.”Ann also appears on the 2022 release Tyler Kline: Orchard (Neuma Records, January 14, 2022), performing six works of Tyler Kline, five of which she commissioned. Fanfare Magazine praised her performance as “alive … [played with] aching expression.”Ann’s latest project, “Prayers for a Feverish Planet,” responds to the climate crisis with 60 new works, from composers across the globe, for piano and piano/electronics. She currently serves as Associate Professor of Music at the University of Minnesota Morris.