On Saturday, April 27th and Sunday, April 28th Piano by Nature is thrilled to present Vermont- based clarinetist Steven Klimowski performing with pianist Sadie Brightman in an exquisite recital of music highlighting the very best of each instrument. You’ll experience Leonard Bernstein’s and Brahms’ clarinet sonatas; Bernstein’s first work and one of Brahms’ last. You’ll be moved by the intimate solo clarinet music of Bennington’s Allen Shawn and Chopin’s Ballad #4 for solo piano, a dramatic new work by Montreal composer Alexandria Fol as well as Debussy’s stunning Rhapsody for clarinet and piano. And all you have to do is get there—we will take care of the rest!

Piano by Nature will present these two exceptional chamber music concerts at the Hand House in Elizabethtown, NY, one on the evening of Saturday, April 27th at 7PM and the other as a matinee on Sunday, April 28th at 3PM. We ask a donation of $15 per adult and $5 for 15-and- under. We will take reservations by phone and encourage you to call ahead. And if you would like to volunteer to help out with concert prep, or give a bit extra and sponsor a ticket for a student or senior, please let us know.

For more information visit www.pianobynature.org, our Piano by Nature Facebook page, and/or call 518 962 8899.

About Steven Klimowski, clarinetist

Steven Klimowski began his performing career at the age of sixteen as a tour guide at the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California. With childhood interests of baseball, science and Boy Scouts, his life direction was changed when his high school band director gave him an inspiring recording of Mahler’s 10th Symphony. After high school he went to NYC to study clarinet with the famed Leon Russianoff, hitchhiking across the country four times in ensuing summers to get back home. He ushered at Carnegie Hall, was a shopping mall janitor, flipped burgers at fast food restaurants and taught ghetto children at a home for dependent children before landing his first orchestra job with the Orquesta Sinfonico del Estado de Mexico. There he met his wife, cellist, Bonnie Klimowski. They moved to Vermont in 1980.

In 1987 Klimowski founded the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble. He has played with the Vermont Symphony and the Mozart Festival. Steve is currently the principal clarinet with the Burlington Chamber Orchestra and plays with Raising Cane the VSO woodwind trio.

He is the adjunct clarinet teacher at the University of Vermont, Saint Michael’s College and Middlebury College. More recently he has taken up choral conducting with the choir at the Jericho Congregational Church and studied choral conducting with James Jordan of Westminster Choir College attending the WCC choral institute for several summers and the Choral Institute at Oxford in 2017. Mr. Klimowski has twice been honored with an individual artist’s fellowship from the Vermont Council on the Arts and received its Citation of Merit. When not absorbed with music, Steve enjoys fine dining, cycling, hiking and cultivating garlic at his home in Fairfax, Vermont where he lives with his wife and three cats.

About Sadie Brightman, pianist

Sadie Danforth-Brightman has enjoyed performing as a soloist and collaborator in concerts throughout New England and the Czech Republic. She completed post-graduate studies in piano performance at the Prague Conservatory with František Maxián, and the Longy School of Music with Faina Bryanskaya. Since receiving her BA in music at Wesleyan University, Sadie has been interested in the music of women composers, and in Czech piano literature. Sadie currently works closely with the Golandsky Institute, studying the work of Dorothy Taubman, a pianist and teacher whose emphasis on uncovering the physiological basis for movements has inspired generations of pianists. Sadie enjoys teaching piano students of all ages. In 2014 Sadie founded and is now the Executive Director of the Middlebury Community Music Center (MCMC). MCMC is a nonprofit music school in the heart of Middlebury that brings teachers and students of many genres and instruments together to learn together, perform together, and enjoy being part of a community dedicated to musical learning. Sadie is on the piano faculty at Middlebury College.

Some youtube clips to enjoy: