Lecture-Concert Series presents award-winning pianist Joel Fan in concert Feb. 16

Feb. 9, 2009 -- Joel Fan, acclaimed pianist of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, is the featured performer in the next event of Arkansas State University’s Lecture-Concert Series. Joel Fan will present “World Keys: Music from the Americas” on Monday, Feb. 16 at 7:30 p.m. in Riceland Hall, Fowler Center, 201 Olympic Drive, Jonesboro. Thisevent, like all events in the Lecture-Concert Series, is free and open to the public. The lecture is co-sponsored by the ASU Department of Music.

“World Keys” is Joel Fan’s debut solo recording and was released in June 2006. The Los Angeles Times called the release “a technical wonder,” and it also demonstrates Fan’s interest in new works from artists around the world. Fan’s repertoire is extensive and eclectic, including classics, concertos, his own piano transcriptions and cadenzas, and newly commissioned works.  

This event, like all events in the Lecture-Concert Series, is free and open to the public. The lecture is co-sponsored by the ASU Department of Music.

Fan, a native New Yorker, studied piano at Julliard and was invited to perform with the New York Philharmonic at age 11 after winning the Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concert Audition. He graduated from Harvard with a Bachelor of Arts degree in music and then earned a Master of Music degree from the Peabody Conservatory. He has performed with many famous orchestras, including the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and the New Symphony Orchestra of Bulgaria.

Fan has traveled internationally as part of famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble since 2004, performing in places such as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and on television shows such as Good Morning America and The Late Show with David Letterman.

Joel Fan has won several competitions, including the D’Angelo Young Artists International Competition and the Busoni International Piano Competition. The National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts also honored Fan by awarding him the title of Presidential Scholar.

For his Lecture-Concert program at ASU, Joel Fan will perform music from Brazil, including “Cristal” by Cesar Camargo Mariano; “Alma Brasiliera” by Heitor Villa-Lobos; “Vem Ca, Branquinha” by Ernesto Julio Nazareth. He will also perform music from Syria, including “La Nuit de Destin” by Dia Succari, and Sonata No. 1 by Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera. After intermission, he will return with Margaret Bonds’ “Troubled Waters,” based upon an African-American spiritual, and Frederic Chopin’s “Funeral March” from his Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor. For more on Joel Fan, visit his official Web site, http://joelfanmusic.com. To listen to Joel Fan perform, click here.

For more details, contact Dr. Gil Fowler, associate dean for the Honors College, at (870) 972-2308, via e-mail at gfowler@astate.edu, or visit http://honors.astate.edu.

The Lecture-Concert Series presents diverse programs to enrich the cultural life of the campus, community, and region.  

###
 

--Caitlin Berry, student intern,
Office of Public Relations/University Communications., contributed to this release.