Two renowned pianists and master coaches — BOTH of whom are former chiefs of the San Francisco Opera music staff! — will offer us a delectable and eclectic program of four-hand piano music by Mendelssohn, Brahms, Mozart, and much more!
Sydney-born musician Peter Grünberg has led a multifaceted career that spans several countries. For fifteen seasons, he was Musical Assistant to Michael Tilson Thomas at the San Francisco Symphony. During that time he worked on several Grammy-winning recordings, honed the perfomances of the SFS Chorus and many visiting soloists, and gave hundreds of pre-concert lectures. His performances as a piano soloist with the Symphony have often featured American music, from Gershwin and Copland to Ives and Adams.
He was appointed head coach at the Grand Théâtre de Genève at age 21. A few years later, as a result of preparing the first Australian performances of Berg’s Lulu, he was appointed Resident Conductor with the Sydney Symphony. In the 1990’s, he held the position of head of music staff at San Francisco Opera. During this period he conducted at Moscow Conservatory and at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, and led the San Francisco Symphony in a concert of opera excerpts. He performed at the festivals of Aix-en-Provence, Salzburg, and also at Tanglewood with Frederica von Stade and the flutist Matthieu Dufour.
He has a long history of presenting and performing song recitals, having collaborated with such artists as Tatiana Troyanos, Deborah Voigt, Laura Claycomb and Quinn Kelsey. Instrumental chamber music is also close to Mr. Grunberg’s heart: he has performed Beethoven and Mozart in Japan with members of the Vienna Philharmonic, and with Peter Henderson at Sun Valley Summer Symphony he performed John Adams’s two-piano extravaganza Hallelujah Junction. With the New Century Chamber Orchestra he recently performed music from Berlin in the 1930’s with Thomas Hampson and Daniel Hope. Mr. Grünberg retains a connection with both the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the San Francisco Opera, and is currently developing future collaborations with other young artist programs around the world.
John Parr, Head Coach at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin for eleven years, where in addition to his work preparing singers and assisting conductors in preparing the productions he has also been musical director of a series of song and poetry recitals, Lieder und Dichter (Songs and Poets). From 2000-2011 he was San Francisco Opera’s Head of Music Staff. He was a Master Coach for the Merola Opera Program and works frequently with San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows as a guest teacher. Since the summer of 2018 he has been Master Coach at the American Wagner Project in Reno, Nevada, led by Luana de Vol, a division of the Institute for Young Dramatic Voices (IYDV). He has performed over 10 years for the Lieder Alive! recital series in San Francisco, for which he is also musical advisor.
A native of Birmingham, UK, Parr studied piano at the Royal Northern College of Music with Sulamita Aronovsky and musicology at Manchester University. He worked for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden from 1985–88, touring with the company to Japan and Korea in 1986. He was engaged at Scottish Opera from 1988-90. In 1991 he joined the Lower Saxony State Opera in Hannover, Germany, where he was Head of Music Staff and Musical Assistant to Music directors George Alexander Albrecht, Christof Perick and Andreas Delfs, specializing in the Wagner and Strauss operas. During this time he developed an extensive series of Lieder Recitals and Chamber Music programs for the Opera. From 2002-2005 he worked as a coach at the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, and has also given recitals in the Wagner Museum. From 2011 to 2014 he was Casting Director and Musical Assistant to the Music Director at the Badisches Staatstheater, Karlsruhe, Germany. With San Francisco Opera, Parr has developed and performed in numerous recital programs. He promoted his own series of recitals entitled Basically British at Old First Concerts, and appeared many times with San Francisco Performances and other promoters in the Bay Area as a song accompanist and chamber musician.