Concert Schedule

Fredericksburg Music Club, Inc. Newsletter

Emile Pandolfi, Concert Pianist - In Concert

May 15, 2016
Concert will be held at 3:00p.m.
Fredericksburg United Methodist Church 1800 N. Llano (Hwy. 16 North) Fredericksburg, Texas
There is no charge for these concerts as all concerts are funded through grants or private and corporate donations through mail, at the door, or through our website.

  Emile Pandolfi, Concert Pianist - Biography  
 

Emile Pandolfi, Concert Pianist

It has been said that he plays “luxurious arrangements” with an “ethereal quality”; that he plays in a “free-flowing, emotional manner that seems to go to the music’s very soul.” (Stereophile Magazine) Without a doubt, when you hear Emile Pandolfi play, you know that you are hearing one of today’s finest pianists. Receiving his degree in piano performance, Emile applies his classical technique to Broadway and Popular music, in addition to classical performance, to the delight of his many fans. Strong in both technique and musicality, he has performed in many parts of the world throughout his professional career.

 
Fredericksburg Music Club, Inc. Presents Christine Albert In Concert November 15, 2015

Emile Pandolfi grew up in an Italian household with five children. Interactive family fun, art and entertainment were always part of the scene.

“Our house was always the place friends gathered,” he comments. “I had a mother who was an intuitive entertainer. And she taught me to entertain people. She loved people. She was a mom and a housewife by choice, but she was one of the best people I’ve ever known at knowing how to make people have a good time.”

“My dad used to put art prints up on the wall – works by Raphael, Bellini, Modigliani, Monet, Utrillo, Cezanne, Picasso -- a wide variety. We, as children, four-years-old and up, would have to recognize the individual style, and tell him why we thought which piece was this or that artist. It was a great art appreciation course, and has been a dynamic factor in shaping my sense of artistic confidence.”

“My dad and mom always encouraged all of us to follow our dreams. They never pushed us in any direction except to pursue - no matter what - those things we believed in.”

Emile Pandolfi
Concert Pianist

 

Some might say that this merged foundation of fine art with humor and a sense of entertainment is what shapes the concert format that has gained Emile Pandolfi such acclaim and popularity today.

Pandolfi’s performances are far from straight-backed, formal “recitals.” While, unquestionably, there is finely-tuned, trained technique on display, it is tempered with a gleam in his eye, a quick card trick, a hilarious tale about some early date with his wife, a comic’s turn of phrase, that brings the performance to a different place from what an unknowing first-time audience member might be expecting.

Emile has been a student of “serious” piano since the age of five, with his symphony debut at fourteen, Pandolfi received his graduate degree in piano performance. His interests didn’t turn toward popular music until after he had finished his schooling and was out on the road.

He began traveling the globe, playing wherever he went. He ended up in Los Angeles for fifteen years where he made his living playing for dancing, acting, and opera coaches, along with working the nightclub scene and cruise ships.

He spent six years as the “piano man” in major comedy clubs, providing music for improv groups and a line-up of comedians including Jay Leno, Robin Williams, Jerry Seinfeld, David Letterman, Yakov Smirnoff and others. An audience’s laughter became part of the overall experience that brought him most satisfaction as a performer.

In 1984, he was one of four pianists chosen to record the broadcast version of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” for the official Opening Ceremony of the Olympics in L.A., and was one of the 84 pianists performing live during the ceremony.

Eventually deciding that he wanted to raise his children somewhere other than Los Angeles, Pandolfi moved cross-country to Greenville, SC in 1986. Within 45 minutes of arriving in town, he became the pianist at the City Club and stayed until 1994.

He recorded his first solo CD in 1990. Since that time, Emile Pandolfi has recorded over 30 CDs, with sales exceeding three million units. He now ranks as the top-selling recording artist in the specialty “alternative” market in which gift shop and bookstore sales are classified. His holiday-themed recordings, as are his holiday performances, are best-sellers wherever he goes.

Press:

“I can’t imagine a more gratifying profession than I have — there’s nothing that can compare to being in front of a live audience,” Pandolfi reflects.

“I want them to want and expect to be taken somewhere, on an emotional journey. They can laugh and cry and be excited and get all dreamy in one evening, in one place. It’s an intense, passionate thing we’re sharing together. It’s visceral – for both of us. I need to feel it in my bones just as much as they do.

There’s a communication that takes place, that makes a listener feel valued, important, familiar... actually “known.” When lines form at the end of an evening with hundreds of persons in queue to have CDs signed, it’s more akin in tone to a family or class reunion than it is a line of unknown faces waiting for a signature.”

 

© https://www.fredericksburgmusicclub.com/Schedule20152016.html

Fredericksburg Music Club, P.O. Box 1214, Fredericksburg, TX 78624

You are receiving this email because you previously subscribed to our email list. Unsubscribe from this newsletter.
If you are having difficulties viewing this email, you can also view it on our website at https://www.fredericksburgmusicclub.com/EmilePandolfiConcertPianistNewsletter.html