Susan Salm on Cello
Toni Pearson on piano
Susan calls this recital “My thank you to Ner Shalom”
The program will include Bruch’s “Kol Nidrei,” the Schubert “Arpeggione” sonata for cello and piano; and Janacek’s “Fairy Tales” for cello and piano.
The piano Ms. Pearson will play was donated to Ner Shalom by the Salm family. The instrument belonged to their mother Erna Salm, a concert pianist in Germany. When the Nazis came to power, Erna shipped her pianos and her husband’s library to the Netherlands until their escape to the U.S., where she and her husband Arthur began a new life. After the war, the Steinway arrived and Erna Salm once again had her beloved baby grand. Before long she and her informative performances became an important element of Chicago’s musical life with the establishment of regular monthly “House Concerts”, a tradition from her life in Europe that she successfully brought to the American public. She and her four children - the “Salm Ensemble” - were often featured in radio, on television and in the Chicago newspapers.
Hailed by critics as “a cellist of very great significance,” “brilliant and deeply moving,” Susan Salm received her earliest musical training in her native Chicago and later studied at the Juilliard School in New York.
She has appeared as soloist with major orchestras and performed solo recitals in the major cities of the US, the UK and Europe, participated in international music festivals, and is a frequent recorder for radio stations around the globe.
She is the director and co-founder of the Raphael Chamber Music Workshop in Wilton, New Hampshire.
Toni Pearson obtained her undergraduate degree in music with honors in performance at the University of Adelaide. She studied piano with David Lockett, and performed regularly as a recitalist and chamber musician with the Australian Society for Keyboard Music. She attended medical school and received her medical degree in Adelaide. She is currently Professor of Pediatrics and Neurology at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, where she directs the program for pediatric movement disorders.