CHAD LAWSON with JUDY KANG & SETH PARKER WOODS
Saturday, March 25, 2023 | 8 p.m.
2022-2023 CANDLER CONCERT SERIES
This concert is presented by the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts.
404.727.5050 | schwartz.emory.edu | boxoffice@emory.edu
Audience Information
Please turn off phones and all electronic devices. Photography, recording, or digital capture of this concert is not permitted.
Ushers
The Schwartz Center welcomes a volunteer usher corps of approximately 60 members each year. Visit schwartz.emory.edu/volunteer or call 404.727.6640 for ushering opportunities.
Accessibility
The Schwartz Center is committed to providing performances and facilities accessible to all. Please direct accommodation requests to the Schwartz Center Box Office at 404.727.5050, or by email at boxoffice@emory.edu.
Design and Photography Credits
Front Cover Photo: Andrew Zaeh
Title Page Photos: Courtesy of artists
Cover Design: Nick Surbey | Program Design: Lisa Baron
Back Cover Photo: Mark Teague
Acknowledgment
This season, the Schwartz Center is celebrating 20 years of world-class performances and wishes to gratefully acknowledge the generous ongoing support of Donna and Marvin Schwartz.
This program is made possible by a generous gift from the late Flora Glenn Candler, a friend and patron of music at Emory University.
CANDLER CONCERT SERIES
CHAD LAWSON with JUDY KANG, violin, and SETH PARKER WOODS, cello
Saturday, March 25, 2023, 8:00 p.m.
Emerson Concert Hall
Schwartz Center for Performing Arts
2022–2023
Ballade in C Minor (The Piano)
Nocturne in F Minor (Chopin Variations) Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849)
arr. by Chad Lawson
Waltz in C-sharp Minor (Chopin Variations) Chopin arr. by Lawson
Fields of Forever (breathe)
Prelude in D Major (You Finally Knew)
One Day You Finally Knew (You Finally Knew)
Irreplaceable (breathe)
When the Party’s Over arr. by Lawson (Single release–Billie Eilish cover)
—Intermission—
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Program
To Hold the Stars in the Palm of Your Hand (breathe)
For Such a Gaze of Wonder (breathe)
Featured duo with Judy Kang
She (Unobscured Season 1)
Waltz in A Minor (Chopin Variations) Chopin
arr. by Lawson
She Dreams of Time (You Finally Knew)
Nocturne in E-flat Major (Chopin Variations) Chopin
arr. by Lawson
Album titles appear in parentheses.
All works are composed by Chad Lawson, unless otherwise noted. Program and performers are subject to change. Changes will be announced from the stage.
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At the Intersection of Music and Wellness
In the last two years alone, world-renowned pianist Chad Lawson has profoundly reshaped the role that music plays in our daily lives and forged a powerful new pathway for healing. On his luminous new double album breathe, the North Carolina-based composer expands on the extraordinary intentionality he first brought to his massively streamed 2020 effort You Finally Knew, transforming his decidedly modern take on classical music into a conduit for stillness, serenity, and self-reflection. Partly informed by his work as creator and host of the iHeartRadio Award-nominated podcast Calm It Down, breathe ultimately establishes Lawson as an essential new voice exploring the intersection of music and wellness—all while delivering an exquisitely crafted body of work whose melodic beauty transcends all genre boundaries.
“With this album I really wanted to create something where anyone can sit back, close their eyes, and release everything they’ve been holding inside,” says Lawson, who’s devoted much of the past few years to studying the science behind calming music and its neurological effects. “Most of us are at a place where we’re constantly inhaling, taking so much in all of the time, and my hope is that this music can help them to exhale and finally let all that go.”
Endlessly revealing the graceful fluidity of Lawson’s compositions, each piece on breathe lends itself to a vast array of interpretations and leaves abundant room for the listener to insert their own story. In making
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Photo © Shervin Lainez
his way toward that immense spectrum of emotion, Lawson mined his own experience in a particularly transformative period that encompassed not only the global pandemic, but the death of his beloved father. To that end, the album-opening irreplaceable presents a nuanced meditation on grief, evoking a sort of hopeful melancholy in its cascading melodies and soul-stirring orchestral arrangement. “To me irreplaceable is about recognizing the impact that a certain person has had on your life and embracing the fact that no one else will ever be able to take their place,” says Lawson. “So, if you’re heartbroken or grieving over someone, it’s a beautiful testament to how much you loved them. I think it’s our role to take that feeling and turn it around and give that same love to the other people in our lives.”
Elsewhere on breathe, Lawson muses on such matters as the durability of true love (on fields of forever, featuring lush string work) and the sometimes-painful tension between family life and creative practice (on the breathtakingly bittersweet with you). With the album’s latter half comprised of solo piano renditions of its more lavishly orchestrated opening section, breathe also offers up such standouts as Lawson’s solo version of the gently effervescent the color of the sky. “Every single morning I take my dog out, usually very early, and for a while I’d feel pretty grumpy about it,” says Lawson in discussing the song’s origins. “But the more I started doing it, the more I became fascinated with how gorgeous the sky is at that time of day. Every morning it’s a different color, and now it feels really special to take in how spectacular that is.” But whether he’s reflecting on life-changing upheaval or the small and unsung moments that make up the very texture of our lives, Lawson unfailingly creates the kind of warm and lovely atmosphere that’s crucial for a meaningful shift in mindset. “What I’ve found is you have to feel safe first in order to feel calm, so one of my main goals with this album was to create something that really comforts people,” he notes.
Referring to himself as “an extreme empath by nature,” Lawson began classical training in piano as a child and later developed a thriving career
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“Lawson is a streaming star whose original piano instrumentals and updates of works by Chopin and Bach are staples on some of the world’s most popular playlists.”
Sunday Times
as a jazz pianist, but eventually felt compelled to follow an entirely new direction in his music. “The reason I stopped playing jazz is that I didn’t feel it connected on an emotional level,” he says. “When I made my first solo piano album, I was incredibly sick with ulcerative colitis and found that creating this music was very healing to me. Then after I put it out, I started hearing from listeners who’d say things like ‘I just lost a loved one and felt like you were holding my hand through the most difficult time in my life.’ That’s when things started making sense for me, in terms of making emotion the core of everything I do.” As his audience grew exponentially, Lawson soon found himself featured on the likes of CBS Sunday Morning and NPR’s All Things Considered, in addition to turning out a series of number one releases and landing high-profile sync placements with such shows as The Walking Dead and Viceland.
During the pandemic, Lawson widened his reach with the launch of his podcast Calm It Down in September 2020, a turn of events that further heightened his sense of purpose. A fully independent one-man show, Calm It Down finds Lawson expounding on an inspired range of topics (forgiveness and anxiety, butterflies, and Snoopy), setting his insightful yet charmingly candid ruminations against a tranquil backdrop of his own solo piano music. “The podcast has really taken on a life of its own—I get so many messages from people, opening up about anything from selfdoubt to suicide, and that connection is something I definitely don’t take for granted,” he says. “It’s bizarre that it took something as disastrous as the pandemic for all of us to stop and try to figure out how to take better care of ourselves, but I think there’s hope in the fact that we’re opening up the conversation on mental and emotional health instead of just sweeping it under the rug like we had for so long.”
As a certified breath-work practitioner, Lawson has recently begun to integrate breathing exercises into his live performance. “At the start of the show, I’ve been teaching the audience a very simple technique, just to get them in the practice of being able to quiet some of the chaos and really focus,” he says. And with the release of breathe, Lawson hopes that listeners might allow themselves a similar retreat from the incessant noise of everyday life. “The past couple of years have shown me that people are in need of something soothing to the mind, and I’m happy that I can provide that in some way,” he says. “At the end of the day, all I’m asking is for my music to be a place where people can go to tune out the outside world for a little while and feel that emotional embrace that so many of us have been missing.”
—Program notes courtesy of Universal Music Group
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Performer Biographies
Chad Lawson
Chad Lawson is prolific in his efforts to redefine the boundaries of classical music from the past and into modern-day. With 650 million streams globally, one million monthly Spotify listeners, and now a number one creation with breathe (Decca Records/Universal Music Group) made in collaboration with London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Abbey Road’s recording studios, Lawson’s creative works have achieved monumental success.
Lawson has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, NPR’s Morning Edition, and Germany’s NDR Kultur. In 2021, Lawson was honored with an iHeart Radio Podcast Awards nomination for his podcast Calm it Down, which has surpassed 3 million episode downloads.
Lawson is also a certified breath-work practitioner aiming to combine classical music with a meditative mindset, making for a unique listening experience that is both calming and creative.
Seth Parker Woods
Hailed by the Guardian as “a cellist of power and grace” who possesses “mature artistry and willingness to go to the brink,” Grammy Award–nominated cellist Seth Parker Woods has established his reputation as a versatile artist and innovator across multiple genres. Woods’s projects delve deep into the cultural fabric, reimagining traditional works and commissioning new ones to propel classical music into the future, inspiring the New York Times to write, “Woods is an artist rooted in classical music, but whose cello is a vehicle that takes him, and his concertgoers, on wideranging journeys.” He is a recipient of the 2022 Chamber Music America
Michael Jaffee Visionary Award.
Woods’s debut solo album, asinglewordisnotenough (Confront Recordings-London), has garnered great acclaim since its release in November 2016 and has been profiled in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, 5against4, I Care If You Listen, Musical America, Seattle Times, and Strings magazine, among others.
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Photo © Shervin Lainez
Photo courtesy of artist
Judy Kang
The New York Times hailed, “Judy Kang, a Canadian violinist and most likely the only musician to have worked with both Pierre Boulez and Lady Gaga, was featured in Brahms’s Violin Concerto. Ms. Kang, who drew whoops from the audience before playing a single note, offered a lean, focused sound, pinpoint intonation, and expressively molded phrasing. Every line seemed to mean something personal in what amounted to an amorous serenade.”
Kang is not your quintessential artist. She has established herself internationally as a solo violinist and chamber musician in the classical world as well as a featured guest artist and prominent collaborator in the world of pop, indie, jazz, and hip hop. A multi-faceted artist evolving outside of her formal classical training, Kang has set herself apart from others through her work as a singer/songwriter, producer, composer, and arranger.
Kang continues to defy and break the constraints of boundaries improvising, jamming, co-writing, producing, and performing with bands and artists from Alaskan prog rock band Portugal. The Man to such powerhouses as Lady Gaga.
Schwartz Artist-in-Residence Events
Cellist Seth Parker Woods has established a reputation as a versatile artist and a fierce advocate for contemporary arts. As part of the Schwartz Artistin-Residence Program, Woods and Emory faculty composer Katherine Young are developing a new work for solo cello during his time in Atlanta. The Atlanta and Emory communities are invited to attend the following free events as part of this residency:
Monday, March 27 | Performing Arts Studio
1:00 p.m. Open Rehearsal with Seth Parker Woods and Katherine Young
4:00 p.m. Master Class—Collaboration and New Practices
More information is available at schwartz.emory.edu/calendar.
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Photo courtesy of artist
Schwartz Center Staff
Rachael Brightwell, Managing Director
Terry Adams, Box Office Coordinator
Lisa Baron, Communications Specialist
Kathryn Colegrove, Associate Director for Programming and Outreach
Lewis Fuller, Associate Director for Production and Operations
Jennifer Kimball, Assistant Stage Manager
Jeffrey Lenhard, Operations Assistant
Alan Strange, Box Office Manager
Nicholas Surbey, Senior Graphic Designer
Alexandria Sweatt, Marketing Assistant
Mark Teague, Stage Manager
Nina Vestal, House Manager
Matt Williamson, Multimedia Specialist
The Schwartz Center for Performing Arts offers a variety of jazz, classical, and crossover music each season. Visit schwartz.emory.edu for more information.
Upcoming Candler Concert Series Event schwartz.emory.edu
Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer, and Zakir Hussain, with Rakesh Chaurasia
Thursday, April 20 | 8 p.m.
Beginning with the most creative exponent of the banjo in our time, Béla Fleck, this unique quartet also features the greatest living player of the tabla, the legendary drummer Zakir Hussain; acclaimed virtuoso of the classical and bluegrass bass, Edgar Meyer; and the great Indian flutist Rakesh Chaurasia. With their decades of artistry and the magic of improvisation, the result is a powerful four-way musical dialogue to close out the Schwartz Center’s 20th Anniversary season.
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20TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON
The foundation of the performing arts at Emory began with the vision and gifts of Flora Glenn Candler and came to full fruition in this exquisite venue with the support of Donna and Marvin Schwartz. The 2022–2023 season marks 20 years of world-class performances at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts.
