B THERE OR B SQUARE
Sunday, November 15, 2026 at 3:00 PM
Few pieces of music are as instantly recognizable as Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Built around four unforgettable notes, this revolutionary masterpiece changed the course of music history while its composer was losing his hearing. Paired with a vibrant concerto featuring guest artist Daniela Liebman, this program celebrates Beethoven's genius, resilience, and enduring power.
Concert Information
Ticket Prices
Sunday, November 15, 2026 at 3:00 PM
Dawson Auditorium, Adrian College
Bruce Anthony Kiesling, conductor
Daniela Liebman, piano
- BERLIOZ Roman Carnival
- BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 1
- BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5
Guest Artist
Daniela Liebman, piano
Twenty-four-year-old Mexican pianist DANIELA LIEBMAN has rapidly established herself as an artist of eloquence, poise, and nuance. Since her debut at age eight with the Aguascalientes Symphony, Daniela has performed with more than thirty orchestras on four continents. Despite her young age, she has already appeared on North America's most prestigious stages and series and has been praised widely for her cultural ambassadorship.
In the 2026–27 season, Daniela joins the worldwide celebration of the 200th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven's death. She performs Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 with conductor Jeffrey Kahane and the newly established Harmonium of Texas in its inaugural season, and returns to the Adrian Symphony to perform the composer's Piano Concerto No. 1 under the baton of Bruce Kiesling. Since 2023, Daniela has been a featured artist in "The Complete Philip Glass Piano Etudes" program, which premiered at Lincoln Center's David Geffen Hall and has since visited major cities and leading series throughout the United States and Europe. This season, Daniela and the program appear at Tanglewood, Performing Arts Houston, Charleston's Gaillard Center, and Berkeley's Cal Performances.
Daniela made her Carnegie Hall debut at age 11 with the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony playing Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2. At age 14 she played for former First Lady Jill Biden at the Kennedy Center. She has appeared at the Ravinia Festival three times, opened the Reno Philharmonic's 23-24 season under the baton of Laura Jackson, and been featured on acclaimed series including the Gilmore International Piano Festival, Harriman-Jewell Series, University Musical Society, Festival Napa Valley, and La Jolla Music Society.
Daniela is regularly invited to perform with orchestras in her home country of Mexico, including Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México, Boca del Río Philharmonic, Mexico City Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfónica de Yucatán, Orquesta Filarmonica de Jalisco, and Orquesta Sinfónica de Estado de México. Daniela made her debut at Mexico's Palacio de Bellas Artes in 2013, performing Shostakovich and Mozart on two separate occasions with the Cámara Orchestra of Bellas Artes.
Committed to sharing her love of music with others – and acknowledging her unique position as a young Latina pianist with over a decade of professional experience – Daniela frequently participates in talkbacks with student musicians of diverse ages and backgrounds. Her dedication to celebrating her Mexican heritage is additionally reflected in her creative programming.
For her artistry and cultural ambassadorship, Daniela has twice been named one of the "40 Most Creative Mexicans in the World" by Forbes Mexico. In 2018, Daniela was named one of Forbes Mexico's "100 Most Creative and Powerful Women," and was invited to Forbes' reveal of its 2018 edition of Creativos Mexicanos, celebrating extraordinary Mexican leaders in the arts. She has been interviewed by Amy Poehler's "Smart Girls," featured in GQ Mexico and Vanity Fair, and awarded Mexico's 2014 Nacional Premio de Juventud.
Daniela released her eponymous debut 2018 album to critical acclaim, featuring "emotive" and "most memorable" (The Journal of Music) renditions of classical piano works. Distributed by Warner Classics, the album reached #5 on Spotify's "Classical New Releases," #2 on Amazon Music's "Fresh Classical," and #2 on Apple Music's "New Classical." Since its release, Daniela's recording of Ponce's Balada Mexicana has been streamed over 1.6M times on Spotify. The same track is featured on the Mexican television series, Aquí en la Tierra, starring Gael García Bernal and Paulina Dávila. A new album is in the works for next year.
Daniela received first prizes in the 2017 Piano Texas Concerto Competition, the 2012 Russian International Piano Competition in California, and the 2011 "Night in Madrid" in Spain. In 2013, Daniela was selected to participate in Lang Lang's Junior Music Camp in Munich.
Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, Daniela began her piano studies at age five. She is a recent graduate of The Juilliard School, where she studied with Julian Martin and Yoheved Kaplinsky. She previously studied with Tamas Ungar. Daniela is a Warner Classics artist and an international Yamaha artist.
Program Notes
Roman Carnival Overture
Hector Berlioz (1803 - 1869)
Berlioz was a true romantic, and both his life and his music attest to that fact. He felt his emotions intensely, and was often moved to tears by poetry, music and architecture. He found himself in love several times and carried the objects of his affection in his heart for life. He was known to have excessive displays of emotion, serious mood swings from rapture to melancholia, and sentimentality. All these nuances of his emotional volatility found their way into his music, but not without struggling to convince his family that music was where he belonged. His father was a physician who wanted young Hector to be a doctor. His mother was a strictly religious woman who considered music, with its connection to theater, to be sinful. Hector fought to be allowed to take music lessons, and he actually taught himself harmony and counterpoint by reading in bed at night. He did begin to study medicine, and his first experience with dissection left him horrified and quite sick. He managed to complete a Bachelor of Science degree, then struck a deal with his father, who agreed to continue his allowance if Hector could prove within two years that he had the ability to succeed at music. Success did not come quickly, his allowance was discontinued, and he struggled mightily on his own for several years. He had scattered successes until commissioned to write a work for Paganini. The work was not completely recognized for another four years, when Paganini finally sent him a message: “Beethoven is dead and Berlioz alone can revive him.” He included a substantial amount of money, which allowed Berlioz to work at serious composing.
The Roman Carnival Overture, composed in 1844, was originally intended to be part of a larger opera which the composer decided to develop into an independent symphonic work. It opens with a lively theme for violins and violas, using the character of a sixteenth century Roman dance. The theme is picked up by other sections of the orchestra. A pause happens, and then a melody for English horns follows. This is taken up by flute and strings. A dance melody is introduced with increasing volume, and a theme for strings is developed. The remaining portion of the work reprises the dance and the earlier melody of the horn, and ends with the original Roman dance. It is an orchestral showpiece, difficult to play and brilliantly scored, and gives the desired effect of landing the audience right in the middle of a carnival.
Beryl McHenry
Piano Concerto No. 1
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827) What was issued as the Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major was actually the second written, but the first to be published. The Piano Concerto No. 2 was actually written in 1795 while No.1 was written in 1798. With that interesting note understood, it is helpful to understand the period in Beethoven’s life during which these concerti, and the accompanying third, written in 1800, were created. His hard boyhood had ended, he had begun a new life in Vienna, and the news of his father’s death had completed the break with his past. He was feeling a new freedom and was sure of his abilities for the first time. He was, at the age of 25, a successful musician, much in demand as a pianist in Vienna, recognized as technically brilliant and remarkable as an improvisor. While his earlier work had been notably influenced by Mozart, he was now beginning to acquire his own style and identifying characteristics. While still reminiscent of Mozart, Beethoven’s work in 1795 and following began to show a new maturity in its orchestral form, and increased dramatic power in solo passages, suggesting that Beethoven was now beginning to think for himself. It is out of this period of personal mastery that his First and Second Concertos come.
The Piano Concerto No. 1 opens with youthful vigor and self-assurance, suggesting a young man in the prime of creative inspiration, enjoying life and free of any oppressive thoughts. The spirit of Mozart, who had died four years earlier, presides over this first movement in phraseology and instrumentation. The movement ends with a piano cadenza and the C major octaves with which it began. In the second movement the drama is replaced by a gentle opportunity for the piano to express its lyrical qualities. The orchestra is tamed but allowed expression in a grand melody and rich coda. The third movement is a rondo presenting a simple theme for development as the movement proceeds with increasing vigor. A piano cadenza is included, after which the movement ends swiftly.
Beryl McHenry
Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67
Ludwig van Beethoven
The 5th symphony of Beethoven is the most famous of his works and its theme among the most familiar in all classical music to the general public. The opening three eighth notes followed by a sustained half note is recognized by people who have never heard the entire symphony and have little or no interest in classical music. It is used in movies, commercials and children’s cartoons. During World War II the three short dots and one dash, which in Morse code stand for V, the symbol for victory, became a symbol for resistance to fascism. It was whistled by patriots in defiance of Nazi tyranny. He did, in fact, use the same figure in other works, although never in quite the same way. Composed in 1808, by 1810 the symphony was classified as a Romantic work. Twentieth century criticism, however, has called it “the consummate example of symphonic logic,” and its opening motif remains in the mind of the listener long after the final notes of the complete work have faded.
The entire first movement of this symphony is built with incredible precision on this simple phrase, this musical fingerprint of the master. It passes from one section of the orchestra to another, as the power builds. Even when a second theme is introduced the cellos and basses continue to insinuate the opening theme as a background melody. The second movement is more sedate, containing two principal themes and variations. The first, appearing at the opening of the movement, is a song, carried by the violas and cellos. Upon its conclusion the second theme appears in the clarinets and bassoons, supported by triplets in the violas and plucked strings in the bass. Once the themes are established, Beethoven proceeds with the variations. To open the third movement, the mysterious theme rises from cellos and basses. Then the principal theme of the movement is played loudly by the brass, using the same rhythmic pattern as the opening motif of the first movement. It is developed into a kind of fugue, beginning with the basses, carried to the violas, then passed to the second and first violins in turn. The final section is then opened by the bassoons, and the clarinets take up the four notes of the main theme. In the transition section which follows, the kettledrums pound out the initial theme. The dynamics swell and the final movement begins without pause. It is a magnificent march, an expression of joy, and the second theme of the finale is a hymn of exultation which continues to the end.
Beryl McHenry