The Selma Moidel Smith Recital

featuring

Davide Di Rienzo

April 25, 2025

Schoenberg Hall

6:30 p.m.

Performers

Davide Di Rienzo

Davide Di Rienzo was born in Brescia, Italy, in 1997. He began his piano studies at the age of 12. In 2011 he was admitted to the Liceo Musicale A. Manzoni in Latina, Italy.

He was first prize winner at the International Piano Competition City of Tarquinia, Gian Galeazzo Visconti, and Giovani Musici at the Sapienza University of Rome. From 2014 to 2018, he studied with M° Ėliso Virsaladze and M° Jacob Katsnelson at the summer masterclasses organized in the Caetani Castle in Sermoneta, Italy.

During the summer of 2016, he attended the International Keyboard Institute Festival (IKIF), where he had the opportunity to study with Magdalena Baczewska, Geoffrey Burleson, and Gabriele Leporatti. In 2020 Davide graduated with honors from the Mannes School of Music in New York under the tutelage of M° Jerome Rose.

In 2022, he earned his master’s at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA, where he studied with Inna Faliks. At UCLA, he is now a doctoral student in piano performance and a teaching associate in the department of European languages and transcultural studies.  In June of 2024, he played with the UCLA Symphony Orchestra, performing Brahms’ Piano Concerto no. 2, conducted by Samuel Chung.

Davide Di Rienzo has held numerous concerts and recitals between Europe and the United States, and is also a passionate teacher who loves to inspire and instill the love of music in the future generations of musicians.

Repertoire

Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

Second Year of Pilgrimage: Italy (S. 161)

I. Sposalizio

 

Selma Moidel Smith (b. 1919)

A selection of solo piano pieces by Selma Moidel Smith

 

Kaitlin Webster-Zuber (b. 2000)

Fragmented Reflection

 

- Intermission -

 

Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

Piano Sonata in B Minor, S. 178

The Selma Moidel Smith Recital series celebrates and honors former UCLA music student Selma Moidel Smith.

Program Notes

Raffaello Sanzio's “Marriage of The Virgin” was completed in 1504. It served as inspiration for Franz Liszt's Second Year of the Pilgrimage, the first piece on this program.