Pianist provides levity at Island Fringe Festival
“Perk up, pianist!” is opening at the 2017 Island Fringe Festival on Thursday, Aug. 3.
With an enthusiastic performance schedule that has taken her all the way to Carnegie Hall, Sarah Hagen transforms her award-winning role as “concert pianist” into a stand-up, or rather, sit-down piano-filled comedy.
“Perk up, pianist!” is a uniquely charming music and storytelling experience that takes the audience deep inside the world of a touring classical musician. It will be presented in Charlottetown at the Haviland Club, located at 2 Haviland St., Aug. 3, 6:30 p.m., Aug. 4, 7:30 p.m., Aug. 5, 3 p.m., and Aug. 6, 9:30 p.m.
“One of the best hours I’ve ever spent at the Fringe,” writes The Coast in Halifax. “Hagen reminds us the beauty of how an honest solo performance can make you so easily fall.”
“As a storyteller, Hagen has an unusual stage presence: charming in a low-key kind of way, like a friend leaning across a bar table to whisper something important,” adds Mike Anderson, Mooney on Theatre.
For her role as “classical pianist”, Hagen was awarded as the B.C. Touring Council’s 2015 Touring Artist of the Year.
With performances taking
her from Goose Bay, N.L., to Gothenburg, Sweden, and on to Carnegie Hall as a first-prize winner in the 2013 Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition, The Guardian described her 2014 recital at
UPEI as the Best Classical Performance of 2014, saying, “... the level of passion that Hagen possesses - when it comes to experiencing, interpreting and expressing art - is something quite extraordinary.”