Bowerbird is pleased to present Dynasty Battles in a solo piano performance.
Set in the Germantown neighborhood that Leon Bates once called home, this deeply personal program celebrates the music that helped shape Dynasty’s artistic journey under Leon’s guidance, alongside works that reflected Leon’s own distinguished career as a concert pianist.
The evening is a tribute to a teacher, pianist, and friend whose wisdom and musicianship continue to resonate through the lives of those he inspired. Through this concert, the audience is welcomed to honor Leon’s enduring legacy and experience the profound way a beloved musician influences lives across generations.
PROGRAM
Ludwig Beethoven – Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31, No. 2
Alexander Scriabin – The Piano Sonata No. 4 in F-sharp major, Op. 30
Chick Corea – Children’s Songs with improvisation (selected)
and others
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Pianist Dynasty Battles is the recipient of the 2021 Career Advancement Award from the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia. He has been featured in The Philadelphia Inquirer alongside soprano Marietta Simpson and on music critic David Patrick Stearns’ radio program Creatively Speaking on Philadelphia’s WRTI (90.1 FM).
Current season projects include the world premiere of a concerto for the unusual combination of MIDI keyboard and chamber choir by composer Nina Shekhar with the multi-Grammy Award-winning ensemble The Crossing, a collaboration spotlighted in The Philadelphia Tribune, which also profiled Battles. He also recently premiered a composition written for him by multiple Grammy nominee and Pulitzer Prize finalist Ted Hearne.
Recent engagements include debuts at Walt Disney Concert Hall in a concert curated by John Adams, the Chicago Cultural Center’s Preston Bradley Hall as a featured artist in the International Music Foundation’s Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts, Benjamin Franklin Hall with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and the Barbican Centre in London while in residency with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Career highlights include an invitation to perform composer George Walker’s Piano Sonata No.1 during a private engagement at the distinguished composer’s home. In a project profiled by The New York Times, Battles also performed in Bowerbird Philly’s ongoing Julius Eastman series. He has served as a guest lecturer at the Curtis Institute of Music and Temple University.
A native of Philadelphia, Battles studied with concert pianist Leon Bates and currently studies with pianist Eve Wolf, Executive Artistic Director of Ensemble for the Romantic Century. He earned a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance, cum laude, from Temple University under Harvey Wedeen as a recipient of the Esther Boyer College Scholarship.