Summary: This piano performance explores the influence of American expatriate artist James McNeill Whistler on the music of French composer Claude Debussy, as well as their mutual connections to Japan. Whistler borrowed the title of Frédéric Chopin's piano nocturnes of the 1830s for his nighttime landscapes of the 1870s, which in turn inspired Debussy's orchestral nocturnes of the 1890s. In addition, both Whistler and Debussy admired Japanese woodblock prints and incorporated them into their work. This concert, by the young Lithuanian-born pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute, was recorded as part of the Bill and Mary Meyer Concert Series at the Freer Gallery of Art on March 4, 2004.
