aubade

Canadian pianist Janelle Fung has performed in concert from coast to coast in Canada, including tours with Prairie Debut and Jeunesses Musicales du Canada. Winner of the “Artist of the Year” award from the BC Touring Council in 2014, her international concerts have taken her to over twenty countries on five continents. An avid chamber musician, Ms. Fung has appeared in concert with the Ying Quartet, New York Woodwind Quintet, Mark Fewer and Matt Haimovitz. Ms. Fung has been a prize winner in numerous national and international competitions, including the Joanna Hodges International Piano Competition, the Concours OSM-Standard Life, and the Canadian Music Competition.  Born in Vancouver, Canada, Janelle Fung began her piano studies at the age of four. Ms. Fung received her Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music, her Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School and her doctorate from l’Université de Montréal.

The impressive diversity of musical forms and expressive means summoned by Auguste Descarries (1896–1958) in his works for solo piano are given a representative sampling in this recording. Descarries’ output included art songs, works of chamber music, a Rhapsodie canadienne for piano and orchestra, and sacred music, but his piano works, abundant and richly inspired, remain as the core of his cultural production. This outstanding corpus of works at times reveals the influence of Russian music the composer naturally experienced during his musical training in Paris between 1921 and 1929, after receiving the Prix d’Europe. There, Descarries studied piano with Jules Conus and analysis and composition with Georges Catoire, two Russian musicians, and made the acquaintance of Sergei Rachmaninoff and above all, Nicolai Medtner, whom he frequented regularly in the 1920s.