Baylor's Summer Piano Institute Includes Week of Recitals
by Dick Veit, School of Music concert and promotions manager, (254) 710-3991
The Baylor University School of Music will present its annual Summer Piano Institute from June 17-23 in the Jesse H. Jones Theatre in the Hooper-Schaefer Fine Arts Center on the Baylor campus. This year's institute will host a total of 32 high school piano students from Texas, Oklahoma and Washington.
An opening faculty recital will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, June 17. Pianist Brian Marks will be joined by flutist Helen Ann Shanley and clarinetist Richard Shanley for two of the Barn Dances by Libby Larsen. Their performance will be followed by Kae Hosoda-Ayer, who will play five Études and the Fantaisie-Impromptu by Frédéric Chopin, as well as the Mephisto Waltz by Franz Liszt.
Baylor piano students will perform a recital at 7:30 p.m. Monday, June 18, with Drew Sims performing Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 26 ("Les Adieux"), Sarah Warner playing Claude Debussy's prelude "The Engulfed Cathedral" and the Ballade in G minor by Johannes Brahms, Philip Howard offering Lowell Liebermann's suite Gargoyles, and Melissa Creider closing with the final two movements of Samuel Barber's Piano Sonata.
On Tuesday, June 19, Baylor students will be featured in a 7:30 p.m. recital. Taking part will be Whitney Hedin (Mozart), Lauren Messer (Mozart), Leah Van Allen (Brahms), Brittany Kling (Albéniz), Zachary Ridgway (Wagner/Liszt) and Philip Howard (Gershwin/ Wild).
Baylor students also will perform at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 21. Taking part will be Elizabeth Leddy (Mozart), Kendra Wharton (Schumann), Joshua Straub (Mozart) and duo pianists Melissa Creider and Won-Jeong Wang (Liebermann).
The week-long series of recitals will come to a close with two events featuring many of the Institute's high school-age students. The performances will take place at 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 22, and at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 23.
All recitals are free of charge and open to the public. For more information, call the Keyboard Division of the Baylor School of Music at (254) 710-1417.