Northampton pianist to perform emotional medley at Brick Church Music Series in Deerfield

DEERFIELD — The Brick Church Music Series will return on Sunday, Feb. 22, with award-winning pianist Jiayan Sun’s “collage” of emotional works.

The Smith College music professor’s 90-minute program, split with a short intermission, will begin at 3 p.m. at The First Church of Deerfield, 71 Old Main St.

Sun, 36, has played the piano with orchestras across the country in Cleveland, Toledo and Aspen, and beyond in Canada, Ireland, China and South Korea, according to his website. Instead of a booming concert hall, the audience on Feb. 22 will see Sun at a smaller venue.

“It gives me the opportunity to make music that is more intimate and personal in a way, and I really enjoy that when I have the opportunity,” said Sun, who lives in Northampton. Sunday’s concert will mark Sun’s return to The First Church of Deerfield since his first performance there during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Instead of one sonata, Sun will perform a “collage of miniature pieces” by György Ligeti, Leoš Janáček, Johannes Brahms, Claude Debussy and Béla Bartók strung together with their emotional depth. Many of the works explore death, including “In the Mists,” which Janáček composed when he lost his daughters, according to Sun. Janáček’s second collection in the program, “1. X. 1905, From the Street” commemorates the death of carpenter František Pavlík, who was killed in 1905 during a demonstration in support of founding a Czech-speaking university in the Czech Republic that spiraled into violence. Before intermission, Sun will play “4 Piano Pieces, Op. 119,” written by Brahms near the end of his life.

Sun plans to capture the emotional punch of the pieces, an aspect of music that has captivated him since he started taking the instrument more seriously at 12 years old.

“As a musician, it’s perhaps the priority for me to establish an emotional connection, because without an emotional connection between me and the composer and the work, there’s no way to transmit some kind of emotional connection to the audience,” Sun said. “For me, if music doesn’t transmit some kind of emotional connection, it’s not very meaningful.”

The pianist described the piano as his canvas, and sound and time as his medium to channel that emotional connection.

“Music is a language of sound and time, and as a musician, my medium is that, just like painters, they have the canvas and brush and paint,” he said. “When I was about 12, that became very clear to me. The power of music, it’s so overwhelming to me that I just cannot imagine anything else being more powerful or more meaningful for me. … It becomes such an indispensable part of my being. This becomes a calling or it’s just a part of my life; it cannot be separated from me anymore.”

Suggested donations are $20 at the door, with proceeds supporting The First Church of Deerfield. A reception will follow at Deerfield Academy’s Caswell Library. Accessible parking is available toward the back of the church.

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