Charles Lieou will perform at noon, April 6 at the United Church of Los Alamos. Courtesy photo
Charles Lieou, a pianist and postdoctoral research associate at Los Alamos National Laboratory, is making his local debut at the upcoming Brown Bag show.
Lieou’s recital will feature pieces by Bach and Schubert. The free noontime show, sponsored by Los Alamos Arts Council, is at the United Church of Los Alamos. The Brown Bag’s usual venue, Fuller Lodge, is being renovated.
Lieou explained he selected Bach’s “Partita No. 4 in D, BWV 828” because it is a “very bright piece.”
According to the program’s notes, Bach’s Partitas consist of four dance movements: allemande or a German dance, courante, which has a French origin, a sarabande or a Spanish dance, and a gigue, which has a British origin.
He added, Schubert’s “Piano Sonata No. 21 in B flat, D.960,” is a very special. “I literally fell in love with it.”
The music, Lieou said, features solitude, alienation, conflict but then resolution. According to the program notes, Schubert wrote it months before his death at age 31. It is considered his last and greatest of his piano sonatas.
Although Lieou has performed elsewhere including Santa Barbara, Calif., and Hong Kong, where he hails from, the Brown Bag is his first performance in Los Alamos. And it is a recital he looks forward to presenting. “I think it is a good opportunity to allow me to communicate with the public.”
It also is a chance for Lieou, who studies piano but is not a professional musician, to perform.
Lieou said he has studied the piano since age 6 with various instructors including Charles Asche at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Lieou attended UCSB from 2010-2015 to earn his PhD in physics. “He is the one of the best piano teachers I ever had,” Lieou said. “He instilled in me a passion to learn and I owe a lot to him.”
Peter Pesic at St. John’s College in Santa Fe in another of Lieou’s instructors. Both individuals, he said, “pay great attention to both technicality and musicality and taught me to really look into the details of a score of a piece, and evaluate my own playing.”
He added through Pesic and Asche, he learned how to practice. Although working as a scientist, Lieou said he hopes to continue to pursue music. “It is a life-long passion of mine.”
Lieou explained he chose the piano because “it has the ability to (express) a very broad spectrum of emotions and ideas. “There are so many great pieces written for piano.”
