LSUS to host free classical music concert Tuesday
10/01/04

LSUS will host a classical music concert at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday (Oct. 5) in the Science Lecture Auditorium. The concert is free and open to the public.

Sponsored by the Piatigorsky Foundation, the concert will feature soprano Erika Wueschner and pianist Spencer Myer. Both artists are graduates of The Juilliard School and are touring North Louisiana from Sept. 29 to Oct. 8.

The Piatigorsky Foundation was established in 1990 by cellist Evan Drachman to honor his grandfather, the renowned Russian cellist Gregor Piatigorsky (1903-1976). Piatigorsky believed music is not a luxury for an elite few but a necessity of life for all. To that end, the foundation has presented more than 1,700 live classical music concerts to hundreds of thousands of people who otherwise would not have the opportunity to attend such performances.

Wueschner has enjoyed early career success in the field of opera. Recently, she performed the role of Lucia in Hindemith’s The Long Christmas Dinner with the Lincoln Center Theatre Lab at the esteemed Vivian Beaumont Theatre. She has appeared as Mimi in Puccini’s La Boheme with both Opera of the Pacific and the Brevard Music Festival. A recent graduate of the Juilliard School, she was a member of Juilliard’s Opera Theatre where she performed the roles of Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni.

Myer, 23, is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Peter Takacs. He is the recipient of numerous awards from Oberlin, including the Dean’s Talent Award, the John Elvin Piano Prize, the Faustina Hurlbutt Piano Prize, the Louis & Annette Kaufman Award in Chamber Music, the Piano Department Accompanying Award and the Ernest Wilkins Academic Award. He won First Prizes in the 2000 Grace Welsh International Piano Competition, the 2000 Marilyn Horne Foundation Competition, the 1999 Akron Tuesday Musical Club Competition and the 1997 Kosciuszko Foundation Chicago Chopin Competition. Last year, he was one of five finalists in the 2000 American Pianists Association Competition in Indianapolis, as well as a recipient of a Jacob Javits Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education.

The Science Lecture Auditorium is off the south drive of the campus east of the Administration Building and immediately behind the Science Building. Free parking is available in the lots south of the Administration and Science buildings. LSUS is located between Youree Drive and East Kings Highway south of Bert Kouns Industrial Loop in southeast Shreveport.