Eric Holtan wishes he could say that he had this grand plan to perform all of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas over 10 years, finishing up just in time to mark the composer’s 250th birthday.
He didn’t.
But there’s a little bit of fate and hindsight at play as Dove of Peace Lutheran Church this weekend performs the finale of its 10-year Beethoven Piano Sonata Project.
“I would love to think that I was so brilliant back 10 years ago that we would culminate this in the 250th anniversary of his birthday, but I’m not that smart,” said Holtan, Dove of Peace’s music director and the curator of the church’s popular series of free concerts. “I’m just lucky.”
On Sunday, Feb. 9, a trio of Tucson pianists — Georgina Lavery, Alexander Tentser and Joshua Hillmann — will perform Beethoven’s sonatas 1, 12 and 16. All three have performed in earlier Beethoven project recitals, Holtan said.
The concerts take place in Dove of Peace’s Sanctuary, which can seat around 350. The stage is in the center of the space, which means audience members sit facing one another with the pianist in the middle.
“It’s a unique space,” Holtan explained, because when it was built, the award-winning architect William Kirby Lockard designed the sanctuary with the altar in the middle.
“It’s not quite ‘in the round’ because the altar is against one wall and the entrance is at the other wall so it’s just two sides,” Holtan said.
Holtan launched Dove of Peace’s concert series 16 years ago — around the same time he launched his professional True Concord Voices & Orchestra ensemble.
All of the musicians who perform on the series are professionals who are paid by the church, and admission is free. The church collects donations, which it gives to local charities.
Holtan estimated they have given $10,000 a year to local charities every year since the beginning.
