The Department of Music at Mary Baldwin University is pleased to announce the next Sunday Recital. On March 17, pianist Lise Keiter will perform a solo recital, “An American Excursion.” The recital is at 3 p.m. in Francis Auditorium.
“This recital includes a wide variety of works by American composers,” Keiter explains. “I wanted to include many different personalities, cultures, and backgrounds, and so this recital features works by female composers, composers of African descent, Latin American composers, and Chinese-American composers. There are also several living composers represented on the program.”
Keiter is known for featuring works written by women, and she recently performed Florence B. Price’s Piano Concerto with the Waynesboro Symphony. Price, an important African-American composer and pianist, is also represented on Keiter’s upcoming recital, along with William Grant Still, known as the “dean of African-American composers.”
She will also play Stella Sung’s exciting Toccata, a beautiful Nocturne by Miguel del Aguila (who was born in Uruguay), and the fiery Tumbao by the award-winning Cuban-American composer and conductor Tania Leon. The program also includes Samuel Barber’s popular Excursions, along with appealing works by Amy Beach, Philip Glass, and Charles T. Griffes.
“Even though the music is all from the 20th or 21st century, it is all quite accessible,” says Keiter. “It has been fun putting this program together, and I am looking forward to sharing it with the audience at Mary Baldwin.”
An award-winning pianist, Keiter has performed throughout the U.S. and in Europe, and she is active as a solo recitalist, collaborative artist, and soloist with orchestra. Her latest performance engagements have taken her to New York City, North Carolina, Maryland, Wisconsin, Idaho, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, Georgia, South Carolina, and throughout Virginia, including recent performances with the Heifetz International Music Institute and with the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival.
She is professor of music at Mary Baldwin University, where she also serves as Music Department chair. Keiter has a bachelor of music from the Oberlin Conservatory, where she received several top prizes, and she completed a master’s degree and doctorate of music at Indiana University, where she also received the Award for Outstanding Teaching. She also received a fellowship to study at the Internationale Academie de Musique in Gargenville, France. Her teachers have included Leonard Hokanson, Gyorgy Sebok, Robert McDonald, Emile Nauomoff, and Evelyn Brancart.
Tickets may be purchased at the door and are $5 for the general public and $4 for students and seniors (free for MBU students). For more information, please visit www.marybaldwin.edu/arts/music/ or call 540-887-7294.
