Course Description

Instructor: Sally Kann

Edvard Grieg’s position as a Western classical composer is more in the European periphery; nevertheless, his works remain popular today and in the standard repertoire. Grieg was a Romantic composer who cultivated small musical forms, appropriating his beloved Norwegian folk tunes and making them his own, often with astonishing simplicity. He once said that ‘artists like Bach and Beethoven erected churches and temples on ethereal heights’, while his aim in music was to ‘build houses for people, in which they could be happy and feel at home’. We will listen to and analyze four Grieg works: Piano Concerto in A Minor, the Holburg Suite, Peer Gynt, and selections from his Lyric Pieces, with a view to building a Grieg playlist.

Meet Instructor Sally Kann

Instructor Bio: Sally grew up in North Carolina in a musical family. While in high school and college, she studied voice under Janette Ogg, and sang in regional theater. She also began playing viola in the 4th grade, and continued playing for the next forty years with various school, university, and regional orchestras. She received a Bachelor of History degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Since moving to Atlanta in 1983, she has taught violin and piano at the Suzuki School, performed with Orchestra Atlanta (now Georgia Philharmonic Orchestra), has given viola master classes and instrument coachings in East Cobb orchestra programs. A former staff singer with First Presbyterian Church, she joined the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus in 2000; in addition to her chorus commitments, she sings and plays viola with several local ensembles. Currently, she is Secretary of the ATL Symphony Musicians Foundation, Inc., a non-profit, tax exempt educational outreach program, started by members of the ASO. The Foundation partners with local schools to teach lessons, coach students in their instruments, give live performances, and, working with orchestra and band directors, help promote and elevate the artistic level of symphonic arts in Atlanta schools. Sally is also co-founder and president of Save Our Symphony Atlanta, Inc. a non-profit citizens’ awareness group, formed during the 2014 orchestra lock-out, which uses social media to raise public awareness of issues concerning the ASO.