Micah has already been recognized in regional and international competitions. In 2008, he won second prize in the International Institute of Young Musicians Competition and first prize in the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra Youth Concerto Competition. He also won fourth prize in the 2009 Blount-Slawson Young Artists Competition in Alabama. He has been an annual winner of the South Carolina Music Teachers Association Pre-College Auditions, and has performed twice on SCETV as a representative of the SC Piano Festival Association. Micah received the Critic’s Circle rating five times in the National Guild Auditions. He is on a Charleston Symphony Orchestra scholarship and is a student of Enrique Graf at the Charleston Academy of Music.

TUESDAY • FEBRUARY 9
Works by J.S. Bach, Chopin, Prokofiev, Haydn, and Rachmaninoff
8 PM • Sottile Theater • 44 George St

J.S. Bach: French Suites
J. S. Bach composed his six French Suites during his happy interlude at the royal court in Cöthen. They first appeared in his Little Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach: an instructional collection for his wife. They were written for “Clavecin” (harpsichord), but—like so much of Bach’s keyboard material—they adapt nicely to the modern piano. The fifth suite, in G Major, is one of the more upbeat and laid-back of the series—but is still one of the more difficult of them. Like the rest, it contains four standard dance movements: Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, and Gigue—with three additional movements: Gavotte, Bourée, and Loure—inserted after the Sarabande. As usual, there’s plenty of variety in tempo, mood, and style—crowned by Bach’s inimitable, brain-teasing contrapuntal wizardry.

Chopin: Ballade No. 4
The Ballade No. 4, in F minor, is widely regarded as one of Frédéric Chopin’s most profound and technically demanding creations. Of the four Ballades, it’s the most subtle—yet the darkest and most emotionally intense. It also contains the fewest distinct thematic subjects (only two), relying instead on extended development of the material at hand. After a brief introductory passage, the airy and pensive opening theme undergoes a series of transformations before the appearance of the second motif. From there, the development of the two themes becomes intertwined, gradually building in tension and complexity. Finally, after a moment of relative calm, the bravura, counterpoint-laced coda brings the work to its feverish close.

Prokofiev: Piano Sonata No. 3
Sergei Prokofiev first sketched his single-movement Piano Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 28, during his student years, and completed it ten years later, in 1917. Many regard it as one of his finest piano compositions. It can be described as a study in contrasts between his hallmark “motoric” style and his more lyrical side. The work begins in Prokofiev’s typically headlong, driven mode—but soon gives way to a tender, songful interlude. The sophisticated development section that follows is symphonic in scope, with pronounced dramatic-lyric shifts. The manic final coda drives the work to a powerful, crashing finish.

Haydn: Sonata No. 38
It’s not known how many piano sonatas Josef Haydn produced, as he often gave his only copies of them to the students he wrote them for. But more than fifty survive, covering a wide range of sophistication and difficulty. His Sonata No. 38, in F major (H. XVI/23) is a model of confident elegance. The opening movement quickly becomes virtuosic, notable for its trills against a choppy motif. The second movement—built upon scales—is subtly introspective. The assertive finale employs bright chordal textures, leading into a bravado finish.

Rachmaninoff: Piano Sonata No. 2
Sergei Rachmaninoff composed his lush, late-romantic Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 36 in 1913, but revised it in 1931—and it is this condensed (120 bars shorter) version that is most often performed today. Rachmaninoff dives into the work with a slashing, arpeggiated downward plunge, before nearly drowning the listener in a rhapsodic torrent of tense and neurotic music. The slow movement follows without a pause, offering tender and exquisitely elegiac relief—before taking it to a level of feverish intensity. Another sudden downward slash announces the stormy and nervous finale, alternating between a frantic march-parody and moments of incredible lyric intensity. It ends in a blaze of virtuosic glory. •

She’s not a particularly good driver, and I smiled. But same thing the next day and the next, until I finally asked her, part jokingly: “Hey Hat, what’s with your car facing out? Worried you might not make it out of here on time?”

She turned with a frown and said, “You ninny. Ever since we got this stinkin computer you’ve been telling me, ‘Back up the drive, back up the drive.’ So I am.”

Poor thing. Now I don’t know what to tell her. Could be trouble.

This pair of houses was built back-to-back against a common wall. Each is a mirror image of the other. The gambrel roof has a unique overhang to shed the dormers on the sides.

A covenant in a 1726 deed for this property required that the alleys on each side remain open.

The brickwork is English bond, with alternating rows of headers (the short end of the brick) and stretchers (the long side) — which is the same bond used for the main walls of Mulberry Plantation in c. 1714.

A gambrel roof was also used for Hanover Plantation in c. 1720 and Exeter Plantation in c. 1726. •

The area fire of 1740 destroyed all or nearly all houses from Broad Street to Water Street and from East Bay Street to Church Street. Consequently, the houses on both sides of Tradd from East Bay to Church were probably constructed in 1740 and afterward. But in many cases they are still among the earliest surviving buildings in Charleston.

7 Tradd Street

The two-story row houses in the first block of Tradd Street are likely to provide the best idea of what most of the walled the city looked like before 1740. Many were probably rebuilt on existing foundations, and some may have been rebuilt within surviving brick walls.

This example still has its shop entrance on the street and an open passage on the right side that leads to the original private entrance, and on through to the back yard.

The balcony is by the renowned Charleston blacksmith Philip Simmons. •

87 East Bay Street

This is a Charleston single house of unusual height and width. It is one-room wide with a central stair hall in the middle and rooms to either side. The private entrance is off the street, on the left side of the building.

It is not a typical single house, but it is an important example of how, in the 18th century, the back of buildings (in this case the right-hand side) were left almost wholly blank—without windows or doors—so that another building could be built next to it.

Single houses were typically built on a front corner of a lot. Legally, anyone who owned an adjacent lot had the right to tie into the back wall. Although construction costs could be saved by sharing a wall, most builders after the fire of 1740 preferred to build houses as far apart as possible so as to leave fire breaks in between each building. Even then they often kept the back wall blank, or nearly blank, as a fire wall.

~ ~ ~

back of 87 East Bay

In a city were ventilation was a major concern in homes, windows were added to the back of these buildings when there was enough space between buildings for it to be relatively safe. Often, as in this example, only stair windows were placed on back walls, to minimize the possibility that a fire would spread to a brick house through a window.

In 1792, James Gordon acquired this lot which had been vacant since the fire of 1778. He slightly enlarged it for this building. The front initially had a full-width balcony which was moved to 68 South Battery. •

the steeple of St. Michael’s Church

ALL THE ENTRIES in this series will derive from text and photos by architectural historian Gene Waddell, archivist at the College of Charleston. We hope these excerpts will allow you to benefit from Gene’s scholarly insight into the unique architecture of this city.

The origin of Gene’s material is his unpublished, copyrighted architectural guide to the most distinctive buildings on the peninsula. It describes residences, churches, and public buildings and how they were constructed—specifically, their sources of design, design features, materials, and methods of construction.

Charleston in 1855 • map from www.historicmapsrestored.com

About Gene Waddell
Gene’s distinguished career includes roles as director of the South Carolina Historical Society; archivist for the Getty Center in Santa Monica, California; head of collection development at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, Canada; and archivist at the College of Charleston, his Alma Mater. His numerous scholarly works on historical architecture include:

Creating The Pantheon: Design, Materials, and Construction
(L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2008)

Charleston Architecture 1670–1860
(Wyrick & Company, 2003)

Charleston In 1883 (co-author)
(Southeastern Historical Press, 1983)

Gene has documented and photographed buildings around the world and continues to write.