9:30-10:00 Pre-Meeting Discussion
Presenter: Ron Surace
Title: "Get Ready for Sunshine!"
Ron Surace will present his original piano music: "Get Ready"--Seven Short Performance Pieces (for Intermediate Piano;) and "Sunshine"--Eight Cool Piano Piece, (Early Advanced level.) His commentary will include reflections on the art of composition.
BIOGRAPHY
Award winning composer-pianist Ron Surace is a well-known performer of classical and jazz music. A native of Lorain, Ohio, Ron started playing in his godfather’s jazz band when he was only 13. He went on to earn undergraduate degrees from Kent State and Oberlin, a master’s in piano performance from Northwestern University and his doctorate from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
The majority of Dr. Surace’s teaching career was at Jacksonville State University in Alabama where he taught for 22 years and developed the jazz performance program. He returned to Chicago after retiring and is presently teaching at the Music Institute of Chicago-Lake Forest campus.
Ron has won the “Silver Award” and the “Music Performance Award” from Downbeat Magazine for original compositions and performance. He has recorded with Columbia, Turning Point, and Southport Records and performed extensively throughout the United States, both as a jazz and classical pianist. Surace was awarded the “National Endowment for the Arts Commission” for new musical works and was winner of the First Annual Composers” workshop competition with the Birmingham City Stages Festival. His one-act opera, “Wonderland,” was featured at the Festivanni Arts Festival,” and his original music drama, “The Adventures of Pinocchio” was premiered at the Illinois State Music Teachers conference in Chicago. He has worked as a studio musician and appeared as soloist on commercial and public TV.
Critics have hailed Surace’s pianism and compositions as captivating”….”beautiful”…... “absolutely mesmerizing”...
10:00-11:00 Business Meeting
Meeting will be led by NSMTA President, George Radosavljevic followed by refreshments.
11:00-12:00 Program
Presenter: Brenda Huang
Program: NSMTA Piano Competition Repertoire
BIOGRAPHY
Brenda Huang, winner of the prestigious 1991 Gilmore Young Artist Award, immigrated from Taiwan to the Chicago area at the age of nine, and had principally studied with Emilio del Rosario, Russell Sherman, and Carolyn McCracken-Forough. She has performed as a soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Illinois Philharmonic, Toledo Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Taipei Symphony, Taiwan Symphony. Ms. Huang was the first prizewinner of the New York Kosziuszko Chopin Competition, the national winner of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), an American Pianist Association finalist, and was chosen to represent the United States at the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw by the National Chopin Foundation in Miami. She has performed on the Sunday Piano Series at the Conservatory of Music at Kansas City, the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series at the Chicago Cultural Center broadcasted live on WFMT, the Young Artist Series broadcasted on New York City radio station WQXR, the Chicago Steinway Society Concert Series, and among many others, at the Polish Cultural Center in New York City, the Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston, the Rudolph Ganz Recital Hall and the Harold Washington Library in Chicago, and solo recitals in Taiwan.
She received her B.A., M.A., and Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory and at the College of Performing Arts of Roosevelt University. She was a member of the piano faculty at the Chicago Institute of Music in Winnetka. Currently, she maintains a vibrant independent studio at her home in Palatine.