PORT ANGELES — The “Wanderer Fantasy” and the “Hungarian Rhapsody” No. 5 from Schubert plus the “Fantasia quasi sonata” from Lizst are just three of the pieces promised when pianist Tien Hsieh takes the stage at Peninsula College on Saturday night.
A player New York City critic Harris Goldsmith has hailed as a “magnetic musical persona,” Hsieh will start this season’s Maier Hall Concert Series with a 7 p.m. performance at Maier, which is on the southeast side of the campus at 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
Tickets are $15 for general admission and $5 for students via pencol.edu, while more information awaits at the office of music professor David Jones at djones@pencol.edu and 360-417-6405.
Remaining tickets will be available at the door Saturday.
Alongside the Liszt and Schubert, Hsieh’s program also offers several of Alexander Scriabin’s ground-breaking Preludes, plus a Beethoven song cycle and a Prelude and Fugue by J. S. Bach.
This is the first trip to Port Angeles for Hsieh, who emigrated from China to the United States with her family when she was a girl of 9.
She has since performed and traveled across the United States and Europe, to play in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and Seattle’s Town Hall, as well as with symphonies in Spokane, California and Texas.
The pianist begins a concert series at Maier that will also include the flute and percussion duo Caballito Negro on Feb. 23 and the young trumpeter Timothy Hudson, founder and leader of Carolina Brass, on April 12.
Season subscriptions are available for $40 via pencol.edu, while more about Hsieh, including audio clips, awaits at www.tienhsieh.com.

