Louis Nagel - Concert Pianist

Home Concerts:
The History and the Mystery of Music

How wonderful it is to experience the magical allure of music. Consider what it would be like to have a concert of classical piano music performed and explained in your own home by a concert pianist and University of Michigan professor. Imagine hearing such favorites as the joyful Italian Concerto of J.S. Bach, a bubbly Haydn or Mozart Sonata, the monumental Appassionata Sonata of Beethoven, a dreamy Chopin Nocturne, the charming Papillons of Schumann, the impressionistically iridescent Images of Debussy, or the incandescent brilliance of a Liszt Rhapsody.

And think about having these works explained in an informal and conversational setting that your home and my style of dialoguing with an audience could provide. This is the substance of what I offer in my presentations of in-home concerts entitled THE HISTORY AND MYSTERY OF MUSIC. I would like to join with you and your invited guests for an afternoon or evening of personalized music making and share with you what Leonard Bernstein so eloquently identified as the joy of music.

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A graduate of The Juilliard School of Music and student of Rosina Lhevinne and Josef Raieff, Steinway Artist Louis Nagel has been performing before the public for over fifty years. He has played and taught at the University of Michigan since 1969, as well as the National Music Camp, the Sydney Conservatorium, St. Petersburg Conservatory, Donghai University in Taichung, Taiwan, The Rubin Academy in Jerusalem, and festivals in Vermont, Poland and Italy. He has performed numerous times in New York, including two recent concerts at Steinway Hall.

In demand as a performer, lecturer and adjudicator he has visited many college campuses in the United States including recent appearances at Texas Tech, Bowling Green (Ohio) University and Emory and Henry (Virginia) University. He has performed concertos by Mozart, Prokofiev, and Tchaikowsky with orchestras in Berlin and Budapest. In Michigan he has collaborated three times with Charles Greenwell and the Southern Great Lakes Symphony and with Arie Lipsky and the Ann Arbor Symphony. He takes particular pride in his many concerts at the Ann Arbor Kerrytown Concert House. Of special note is the ongoing series traversing the entire trio literature of Beethoven, in partnership with colleagues Stephen Shipps and Anthony Elliott.

He has offered home concerts in Detroit suburbs and Ann Arbor, including two for the University Musical Society of the University of Michigan. He has appeared in concert at Hammell Music, the Michigan Steinway dealer. In 1995 he recorded a CD FOUR CENTURIES OF J.S.BACHfor the Equilibrium label and in 2006 a CD of Haydn and C.P.E.Bach for the University's M Block label. And he appears often in various community venues other than traditional concert halls.

His activities at the School of Music include teaching piano performance, piano literature, chamber music and directing the Outreach in the Performing Arts program, that brings talented music students into community venues other than traditional concert halls.

Dr. Nagel is very active in both the American Psychoanalytic Association and the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute. Together with his wife, musician, psychologist and analyst Dr. Julie Jaffee Nagel,they explore the close and vital relationship between psychology and music. They have presented programs on stage-fright, career problems, and selected works of great composers. Recently, for the Midland, Michigan music teachers, they jointly presented a paper/performance on Mozart in the tragic year 1778, focusing on the Sonata in A Minor, K. 310.

Louis Nagel is winner of numerous prestigious prizes including the National Arts Club, National Federation of Music Clubs, and the Geneva International Competition. He has adjudicated many important competitions including the National Federation of Music Clubs, The Texas State Piano Teachers, The Camerata Competition, and the Joanna Hodges Piano Competition.

His articles and reviews appear in The Juilliard Journal Online, The Journal Of The American Liszt Society, Clavier Magazine and Piano And Keyboard.

Many of Dr. Nagel's students are active as performers conductors, and teachers both in the United States and abroad. Click here to see a partial list of students.

Louis Nagel is a Steinway Artist.