BY ANNA CREBO
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Hungarian pianist and composer Franz Liszt, who was fond of relating anecdotes

David Deveau will perform works by Beethoven, Liszt and Debussy on Sunday in the first concert in the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival's "Piano & Friends" series.

Such is the case with Sunday afternoon's concert at Wellfleet Congregational Church by New England-based pianist David Deveau. A senior lecturer in music at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, where he has served on the music faculty since 1988, Deveau has distinguished himself as a recitalist, orchestral soloist and chamber musician.

Besides works by Beethoven and Liszt, Deveau will play French impressionist composer Claude Debussy's image-evoking triptych ''Estampes” (''Prints”) - ''Pagodes” (''Pagodas”), ''Soiree dans Granade” (''Evening in Granada”) and ''Jardin sous la pluie” (''Garden in the Rain”).

Sunday's program - the first in Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival's ''Piano & Friends” series - also will include ''Revoicing Echoes,” a 2005 piece by the versatile British composer Peter Child, who was Deveau's colleague on the MIT music faculty from 1996 to 1999.

The 3 p.m. concert will open with five selections from Beethoven's ''Eleven Bagatelles, Op. 119” and his cheerful, rhythmically engaging Sonata No. 15 in D major (''Pastorale”). Liszt will be represented by ''Harmonies du Soir” (''Harmonies of the Evening”), one of the more melodic and emotional of his 12 technically challenging ''Transcendental Etudes”; his dark, tempestuous etude ''Ab Irato”; and the colorful, gypsy-flavored Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13 in A minor, considered one of the most original and fully developed of his 15 published rhapsodies.

Deveau, who has advanced degrees from New England Conservatory and New York's Juilliard School, launched his solo career in 1982 with a debut recital at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center as recipient of a solo recitalist grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Earlier, in 1978, he made his ensemble debut at Carnegie Hall as winner of the International Concert Artist Guild Award for Chamber Music. He has been active as recitalist and soloist with major symphony orchestras, such as those in Boston, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and St. Louis.

Deveau's passion for chamber music has led to frequent appearances at popular summer festivals such as Tanglewood, Caramoor, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, Wolftrap and the Viennese Sommerfest of the Minnesota Orchestra. Since 1995, he has been artistic director of the Rockport Chamber Music Festival. He has recorded for Centaur and EcoClassics, and has performed on PRI, BBC, NPR and CBC radio.

Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival's coming summer season, which runs from July 29 through Aug. 17 in various locations from Cotuit to Provincetown, will feature 12 programs, including the popular ''Festival Film Night,” with a piano concert preceding showing of a documentary film of the 1997 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

Acclaimed clarinetist Jon Manasse and pianist Jon Nakamatsu, the festival's new co-directors, will open the prestigious series July 29 with a concert of virtuosic works for duo clarinet and piano. A sought-after soloist, Manasse frequently performs at Lincoln Center, and Nakamatsu was winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 1997.

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