150 Fingers • 88 Keys • An All-Steinway Celebration
Who: Weber State University Telitha E. Lindquist College of Arts & Humanities
and the Department of Performing Arts
What: A Concert Celebrating All-Steinway School Designation
Where: Austad Auditorium
When: Tuesday, 27 September 2011, 7:30 pm
The Telitha E. Lindquist College of Arts & Humanities celebrates the designation of Weber State University as an All-Steinway School with a free concert Tuesday, September 27 at 7:30 pm in the Austad Auditorium. The “All-Steinway School” designation will be conferred on the WSU music program in the Department of Performing Arts at this free concert celebration. Children 8 years and older are welcome to attend. A dessert reception immediately follows the concert.
The program will include WSU faculty performers Karen Brookens, Kendra Johnson, Don Keipp, Thomas Priest, Viktor Uzur, Ralph Van der Beek, Shi-Hwa Wang, Gerta Grimci Wiemer and Yu-Jane Yang. Student performers are Sharon Gatrell Datuin, Jared Jaccard, Fan-Ya Lin, Zoe Lu, Nicholas Maughan, Nathaniel Quigley, Brienna Smith, Eliza Taylor and Byron Yue.
The repertoire includes
Solo performance:
“Gnomenreigen” by Liszt, (Lu); “The Earl King,” transcription by Liszt (Yue); “La Campanella” by Liszt (Lin)
Duo performance:
“Chanson triste” and “Le manoir de Rosemonde” by Henri Duparc (Brookens, voice and Wiemer, piano); “Romance” by Amy Beach and “The Song of Taiwan” by Tyzen Hsiao (Wang,violin and Yang, piano)
Trio performance:
Poulenc’s “Trio for Piano, Oboe and Bassoon, 2nd mvt” (Van der Beek, piano, Johnson, oboe, Priest, bassoon);
“Dumky-Trio in E Minor, Op. 90” (III and VI) by Dvorak (Wang ,violin, Uzur, cello & Yang, piano
and an extravagant finale by a Five Piano Ensemble:
arrangements by N. Jan Tan of Strauss’ “Blue Danube Waltz” arranged for five pianos, ten hands, fifty fingers; and Khachaturian’s “Sabre Dance.” (five pianists: Lin, Jaccard, Smith, Datuin and Maughan).
Other selections will fill this program with a surprising and delightful “showing off” of WSU talent and exquisite Steinway pianos.
WSU will formally join a group of more than 120 prestigious global institutions of higher education (including Curtis Institute of Music, Yale School of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music, Oberlin Conservatory, and Central Conservatory of Music in China) that exclusively feature Steinway & Sons pianos for performance and music education.
Madonne Miner, Dean of the Telitha E. Lindquist College of Arts & Humanities, notes “Becoming a Steinway School, Weber State demonstrates its commitment to piano students and faculty, but also to the future of the very best in music education. Music educators may specialize in a range of instruments, but no matter what their specialization, all music educators must be able play the piano--here, the piano they play will be a Steinway. I am delighted WSU is joining that elite corps of schools that are ‘All Steinway.’”
Fan-Ya Lin, a national and international award winning student pianist is equally thrilled. “With Steinway pianos, students are able to create more colors, listen for longer lines, play more delicate tones, and explore bigger range of dynamics, above all, bring the music alive.”
Becoming an All-Steinway School
The quest for WSU’s music program to become an All-Steinway School began in 2002 with gifts from the Stewart Education Foundation and the B. W. Bastian Foundation which funded a Steinway 9’ and a Steinway 7’ grand piano for the Browning Center. In the ensuing decade, the Stewart and Bastian Foundations and many others continued to support fundraising efforts, and the inventory of Steinway pianos began to grow.
In 2008, WSU Provost Mike Vaughan recognized the value of providing Steinway pianos for music students as more and more WSU music students began bringing home top prizes from regional, national, and international competitions. His office made a commitment to help fund the remaining pianos to achieve All-Steinway School designation for WSU.
Students were enthusiastic in embracing the Steinway Initiative and got involved in fundraising, with one WSU piano student, Fan-Ya Lin, taking the lead as the “Honorary Chair of the WSU Steinway Initiative.” As the national first place winner of the Music Teachers National Association Steinway Young Artist Piano Competition (and the youngest pianist winning the national title in the 43-year-history of this competition), Fan-Ya was awarded a $23,000 upright Steinway piano. Fan-Ya generously donated her winning prize upright piano to Weber State University AND performed a two benefit concerts to raise the additional funds for WSU to exchange the upright piano for an $83,000 Steinway 7 foot concert grand piano!
In all, more than $1.1M in funding resulted in a collection of 41 Steinway and Boston (designed by Steinway) pianos, including three Steinway 9’ concert grand pianos and nine Steinway 7’ concert grand pianos for WSU’s Department of Performing Arts and the Val A. Browning Center for the Peforming Arts - two of the 9’ pianos and one 7’ pianos belong to the Browning Center.
In August 2011, the last of the summer’s Steinway purchases was delivered to the applause of WSU music faculty and students, and a free celebration concert was planned as WSU’s gift back to the community. This concert will feature 18 outstanding WSU music faculty and piano students and five Steinway grand pianos, and will include an official “All-Steinway School” plaque presentation by a representative from Steinway & Sons, New York.
For more information: “All-Steinway School,” contact Carol Biddle, cbiddle@weber.edu.
For more information about the concert contact Janneca Johnson, 801-626-6424 or jannecajohnson@weber.edu
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