An Evening of Piano Music with Aaron Wonson

Born in 1999 and from Bridgewater, MA, Aaron Wonson started his first piano lessons locally with Brian Tatro at the age of thirteen. At fourteen he began studying at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School. His teachers were Samuel Adams and A. Ramón Rivera. By 2016 he was invited on a two week tour of Germany to perform with other young artists from NEC.

In 2017 Aaron enrolled at Oberlin Conservatory to study with esteemed Beethoven interpreter Peter Takács. During his time there he became deeply involved in contemporary music and performance, culminating in a recording of György Ligeti’s Piano Concerto with the Oberlin Sinfonietta in 2021. After receiving a double BM in Piano Performance and English from Oberlin in spring 2022, he went on to study with Spencer Myer and receive a MM at the Jacobs School of Music IU in May 2024. While there he established the Novae Trio, funded by the Verdehr Trio of Michigan State University, and was a principal member of the school’s New Music Ensemble. This past school year he pursued a PD at the Jacob’s school while also working as a Collaborative Pianist at DePauw University in Greencastle, IN.

Throughout all of his time working with composers and contemporary music, classical music has remained vital to his musicianship. In 2021 Aaron placed first in Ohio’s MTNA young artist state competition with the music of Beethoven, Schumann, and Scriabin. In October 2024 he performed in IU’s Charles Ives Festival, including a masterclass with internationally lauded pianist Jeremy Denk. This past February Aaron was also a finalist in the Indianapolis Matinee Musicale Competition playing the music of Ives and Clementi.

Aaron enjoys performing and composing his own works. In the past two years he has independently released a jazz trio album and two works for piano and saxophone. Aaron has been an active teacher since he was seventeen. Since returning to Bridgewater in June he teaches privately and plans to start a DMA program in piano performance at Boston University this fall, studying with Andrius Žlabys.

Ravel’s Sonatine (1903-05) utilizes baroque forms in each of its movements, starting with a sonatina, then a minuet, and concluding with a toccata akin to the keyboard stylings of Rameau and Couperin. Ravel colors this piece with his signature modal harmony and melodic architecture. The descending fourth that starts the first movement is later inverted and reversed to start the melody in the second and third movements. As we move through the darkly tinged first movement, we are gifted a charming minuet (with no trio) before the third movement takes off at rapid speeds Truly a quintessential musical representation of jubilant emotional triumph. Equally so, Brahms’ Fantasien (1892-93) goes through a process of triumph but the music starts in a far darker and intense place than the Ravel. The music often sits in these dark moods. Of the seven pieces in this set there are only “Capriccios” and “Intermezzos,” or a fugal piece filled with imitative counterpoint and a piece often used to buffer larger acts of an opera. For Brahms to give each one of these pieces a stylized baroque title leaves a lot open to interpretation. Through all the rage, self-reflection, and compassion on display in this music the set ends with apocalyptic victory.

The second half of the concert is focused more on music that exemplifies transformation rather than sheer triumph. The selection of Debussy’s Preludes (1909-10) & Etudes (1915) chosen each fit harmonically very smoothly into the next, but more abstractly across the set I wanted to portray the idea of a dancer who starts slowly, gains confidence, and then gets lost in a fog before emerging again brightly onto the stage for a full virtuosic display. Debussy’s evocative Prelude titles may put you into a Mediterranean state of mind as well. The concert concludes with one of Beethovens late works, Piano Sonata op. 109 (1820). This music has an evergreen quality that historically is pointed to as the beginning of the romantic aesthetic which Schumann, Liszt, and Chopin further established. The opening fantasy evaporates into a fiery presto, ultimately leading to one of the finest sets of variations Beethoven ever wrote. When the opening theme of the final movement returns the notes are the same, but changed forever now that we know what universes are contained in this music.

CLICK HERE to view the printed program for the evening (in PDF format).