Acclaimed Pianist to Open Sunriver Music Festival’s 49th Summer Concert Season! 
By Jon F. Thompson SUNRIVER, Ore – What does genius look like? It might look a lot like Sunriver Music Festival’s guest artist Michelle Cann, a two-time Grammy winner and one of the most sought-after artists of her generation. She’s coming to Central Oregon for Sunriver Music Festival’s opening concert August 10, at which she will perform Ludwig van Beethoven’s beloved Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major. Michelle Cann doesn’t just play piano. She owns it. She dominates it as she uses it to extract every scintilla of meaning of the composer’s intent. That’s a factor that makes her special. Another factor is that while she plays, she also listens. Brett Mitchell, Artistic Director & Conductor of Sunriver Music Festival says of Cann, “She’s a diligent performer and an incredibly sensitive musician, a real collaborator. She makes chamber music with the orchestra; she listens to the orchestra and responds to it, just as the orchestra responds to her.” Mitchell says he finds Cann to be “an artist’s artist. She’s a probing personality, someone who asks a lot of questions. So many pianists are interested in flash for flash’s sake. She has flash, but she’s deeper than that.” There’s more to a great performance than just playing the music, notes Mitchell, himself a formidable pianist. There is also respecting the composer’s intent. “If your sound stays the same from one composer to the next, that’s a case of making the composer serve you,” Mitchell explained. “Michelle is intent on serving the composer. If I heard 10 pianists playing Mozart, for instance, I certainly could pick out Michelle.” Cann’s ability to probe the intent of composers as diverse as Mozart and Florence Price, a Black 20th-century American composer, is especially impressive because their styles are so different, Mitchell said. “The musical material is so different. The extraordinary thing is they require such different musicians to perform them. Just because you can perform one doesn’t mean you can perform the other. The fact that Michelle can do both in an equally convincing fashion is testament to her musicianship,” Mitchell said. That musicianship is one reason why Mitchell is looking forward to Cann’s performance in Sunriver. “I think Beethoven’s Fourth is my favorite Beethoven piano concerto, the most special,” Mitchell added. “I can’t wait for everyone to experience her work.” Cann is not just a spectacular artist. She’s also an accomplished scholar who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music. She teaches at the Curtis School of Music in Philadelphia, where she holds the Eleanor Sokoloff Chair in Piano Studies, and is a member of the piano faculty of the Manhattan School of Music in New York City. Michelle Cann will perform with the Festival Orchestra during Sunriver Musical Festival’s opening concert on Monday, August 10, at 7:30 pm in the Sunriver Resort Great Hall. In addition to Beethoven’s Piano Concerto in G Major, the concert will celebrate America’s 250th anniversary by performing Joan Tower’s Made in Americaand Josef Hayden’s Symphony No. 101 in D Major, “The Clock.” Tickets for all of Sunriver Music Festival’s August 2026 season concerts are available at sunrivermusic.org or calling 541-593-1084. The Festival opens August 10 at the Sunriver Resort Great Hall and closes August 20 at the Tower Theatre in downtown Bend. Sunriver Music Festival is a year-round nonprofit presenting world-class orchestral performances and supporting music education throughout Central Oregon. Through a commitment to excellence, collaboration and innovation, the Festival seeks to foster a lifelong love of classical music in its many diverse forms. | sunrivermusic.org | 
