Returning to the New York concert stage after a long absence, Esteemed Italian pianist Sandro De Palma presents a recital highlighted by the U.S. premiere of two works by Italian composer Silvia Colasanti as well as beloved keyboard works by Gluck, Clementi, and Liszt

The program opens with the myth of Orpheus, the supremely gifted musician, beloved of Apollo, who attempts to rescue his dead wife from the underworld, represented by the “Dance of the blessed spirits” from Gluck’s opera, Orfeo ed Euridice. It’s followed by the extraordinary Sonata in G minor, Op. 50, No. 3, Didone abbandonata (“Dido abandoned”) by Muzio Clementi. The composer’s only programmatic work, it is inspired by the tragic love story of Dido, Queen of Carthage, and the Roman warrior Aeneas. The first half of the program concludes with the U.S. premiere of Colasanti’s Rumbling Gears for solo piano. The piece, which Colasanti dedicated to the 3D printer, is the composer’s comment on the myth of technological triumph in our time.

The tragic love of Hero and Leander is the theme of Liszt’s Ballade No. 2 in B minor, which opens the second half of the program. It’s followed by the U.S. premiere of Colasanti’s Orfeo, Flebile queritur lyra (“A lamentable problem”) for voice, piano and clarinet, (2009) with a text from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The clarinetist for this performance is Paolo Marchettini, and the narration, in Italian, is by Giorgio van Straten, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute of New York.

Ms. Colasanti’s Requiem for the victims of the 2016 earthquake in central Italy premiered to great acclaim at Spoleto’s Festival of Two Worlds this summer.

Commenting on his program, De Palma said, “Myths are narrations, ridden with sacredness—stories of events occurring in a far-off past. They are part of the history of all people. Once passed on by a sole narrator, they are now circulated by mass media, to be remembered, adapted, and kept alive forever in every corner of the world.”