American concert pianist James Giles will perform in Ada Sunday [OCT. 28] as part of East Central University's 2007-08 Piano Series.
The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Dorothy Summers Theatre. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students, with all proceeds going toward the “All-Steinway School” Fund.
The Music Department's Piano Extravaganza last May raised $20,000 to begin the effort to become an all-Steinway-piano school as well as endow the Dennis Boe Piano Scholarship, said Dr. Starla Hibler, professor of music.
"However, we are still a long way away from the $100,000 we need to purchase a 9-foot concert Steinway Grand for the new theatre in the Hallie Brown Ford Fine Arts Center," Hibler said.
Giles regularly performs to acclaim in important musical centers in America and Europe. He recently completed a tour of China and played at Warsaw's Chopin Academy of Music. He also is a piano professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
This season, in addition to performances in France, Italy, Bosnia and China, he is collaborating with the Cassatt, Chicago and Pacifica Quartets; tenor Anthony Dean Griffey; violinists Gerardo Ribiero and Ilya Kaler; and the Chicago Chamber Musicians.
Last season he appeared as soloist with the symphony orchestras of Bangor, Boise, Evanston and Fresno. He performed Gershwin's "Concerto in F" and "Rhapsody in Blue" with the Fresno Philharmonic on five days' notice, replacing the indisposed soloist.
The piano series also will bring French pianist Hughes Leclere to ECU on Jan. 27 and an Italian cello/piano duo, Dario Destefano and Maurizio Barbaro, on March 9. Proceeds from all the concerts will go toward the purchase of pianos for ECU.
The piano series is part of the Scissortail Arts Series which is funded by ECU, the Ada Arts Council, Oklahoma State Arts Council and Vision Bank.
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