A one-of-a-kind festival will return to West Virginia University when its School of Music hosts the fifth annual Keyboard Festival and Competitions June 3-5 at the Creative Arts Center.

Over the course of the three-day festival, some $11,000 in prizes will be awarded to college and high school pianists.

“To our knowledge there is no other such event anywhere that combines jazz and classical music with competitions for pianists in both categories,” said James Miltenberger, professor of piano at WVU. �

The two core competitions are the Christine Bane Kefferstan Classical Piano Competition and the James Milteberger Jazz Piano Competition. Pre-screenings for both must be received by May 13 in the form of a compact disc, online link, or MP3 file featuring two or more contrasting pieces for the classical competition, comprising of 15 minutes music time, or three selections (ballad, medium tempo, and up-tempo) for the jazz competition.

For registration details, please visit http://music.wvu.edu/summer-programs/keyboard-festival-and-competitions.

“This will be our fifth year and we are especially pleased with the guest artists coming who will be giving recitals and judging the finals of the competitions,” said Miltenberger.

This year’s guest artists are Jerome Lowenthal and Dan Haerle.

Lowenthal has taught piano and chamber music at the Julliard School in New York since 1994. He’s won prizes in competitions in Brussels, Bolzano, and Darmstadt, and performed with major orchestras, including Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco. His extensive recording catalog emphasizes solo concertos and chamber music.

Haerle recently retired after 25 years as a faculty member in jazz studies in the University of North Texas College of Music. He taught jazz piano, jazz fundamentals, advanced improvisation, and supervised the jazz chamber music program. He’s authored several jazz textbooks, is an active jazz clinician nationally and internationally, and was inducted into the International Association Association of Jazz Education Hall of Fame in 2003.

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CONTACT: David Welsh, WVU College of Creative Arts
304.293.3397; David.Welsh@mail.wvu.edu

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