Cann, 29, makes a musical mark on Asheville
Cann plays a pece at the Piano Emporium in Weaverville. She has local concert dates Sunday and in April. / Bill Sanders/wsanders@citizen-times.com
HEAR MORE KIMBERLY
• View Kimberly Cann's Sept. 29 performance with her sister, Michelle, playing two movements from Rachmaninoff's Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGyC5lAdo1w.
• Cann's performance at the Asheville Art Museum at 3 p.m. Sunday is sold out. To learn more, visit www.ashevilleart.org.
• The Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society at A-B Tech will present Cann in recital with her husband, Aaron Brown, double bassist, at 7 p.m. April 1 in Ferguson Auditorium. To reserve tickets, call Cynthia Schwartz at 231-2951.
• Cann performs with Asheville Area Piano Forum pianists John Cobb, Philip Dettra, Anna Hayward, Susan Kincaid and Nathan Shirley in a benefit concert at 3 p.m. April 3 at the Asheville North Seventh-Day Adventist Church, 364 Broadway St. Admission is $15, or $3 for students, free for ages 12 and younger. To reserve tickets e-mail rlrodwell@bellsouth.net.
• The YMI Cultural Center presents “Life Beneath the Veneer,” a continuing lecture-presentation series about African-American history in Asheville, featuring musical works by African-American composers at 5 p.m. April 29. Visit www.ymicc.org.
ASHEVILLE — How does a young classical pianist new to Asheville find a place in this area's flourishing, some would say crowded, music scene?
For 29-year-old Kimberly Cann, who moved here two years ago, the answer might be, “Ask not what your community can do for you, ask what you can do for your community.”
With an impressive background that includes winning an important national competition at age 18 and a graduate degree from one of the nation's top conservatories, the Eastman School of Music, Cann has been quietly making a name for herself by using her considerable musical talents to help local organizations.
“It was not my intention to be at the forefront of musical performance in Asheville,” Cann said with a laugh. “I wasn't sure where I wanted to make my little niche. I was careful to get to know the community.”
She played a solo recital in Asheville as a benefit for Habitat for Humanity at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in 2009.
Then she dazzled the audience last September at an Asheville Area Piano Forum benefit at Diana Wortham Theatre. She and her younger sister, Michelle, a student at the Cleveland Institute of Music and herself a rising piano star, played Rachmaninoff's famously difficult Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos to an enthusiastic crowd.
In December, Cann became volunteer music coordinator for the YMI Cultural Center and began planning an ambitious series of events with Darin Waters, a historian of Asheville's African-American community.
She wants to highlight the contributions of African-Americans to classical music. One of her concert pieces — which she'll play Sunday at a sold-out show at the Asheville Art Museum — is “Troubled Waters” by Margaret Allison Bonds, a pianist and composer who in 1933 was the first African-American to solo with Chicago Symphony.
'Rich heritage'
“For this generation (of African-American classical musicians), I think it's really important that more of us continue to do what we do,” she said. “We forget what a rich heritage we all have in this wonderful music
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