Mount Marty Music To Host Skyrm Recital Nov. 15
Mount Marty Music will present “A Latin American Journey” by pianist Susanne Skyrm at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 15 at Marian Auditorium on the Mount Marty campus, Yankton.
Skyrm has appeared as a piano soloist and collaborative artist throughout the United States and Europe. She specializes in both modern and early piano and combines performing with research interests in Spanish and Latin American keyboard music. She has given presentations for the Music Teachers National Association, the European Piano Teachers Association, the American Musical Instrument Society, the Diego Fernandez International Festival of Spanish Keyboard Music and others on Spanish and Latin American keyboard music. Her performances have been broadcast nationally on public radio and on public access television.
As a period instrument specialist Skyrm has performed on original pianos in Belgium, Scotland, England and Spain; and in numerous locations in the U.S. She is fortepianist and founding member of the period instrument-touring ensemble, Dakota Baroque and Classic Company. Her CD, “Treasures of Iberian Keyboard Music on the Antunes Fortepiano” (Music and Arts), recorded on a rare 1767 Portuguese piano at the National Music Museum in Vermillion, S.D., received critical acclaim.
Her upcoming recital grew out of a summer seminar at the University of Texas at Austin, for which Skyrm was awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for Humanities. Twelve college professors from across the nation were chosen by the NEH to participate in this seminar, taught by the late Dr. Gerard Behague, an eminent Latin American music scholar. Skyrm was able to research the sizeable holdings of the music library at UT Austin to find Latin American music that is rarely heard in the United States. As part of her research project for the NEH seminar, she traced the influence of native and folk elements on the art music of Latin America. Music from this project will be featured on today’s program.
Skyrm holds a BA in music from Albertson College of Idaho, graduating summa cum laude with honors in music. She earned a Master of Music degree in piano performance from the University of Cincinnati and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She was a prize winner in the Mason and Hamlin Idaho state auditions and the regional auditions and the recipient of an award from the Cincinnati Three Arts Foundation. She studied with master teacher Ilonka Deckers-Kuszler in Milan, Italy, for a number of years. Other teachers include Fern Nolte Davidson, Larry Graham and Ray Dudley, piano; Malcolm Bilson, fortepiano; and Bernard Brauchli, clavichord. She teaches studio piano, class piano and piano literature at the University of South Dakota, Vermillion. In 2006 she was named the first recipient of the University of South Dakota’s College of Fine Arts Biennial Distinguished Professor Award.
Mount Marty College
College Relations Office
1105 West 8th Street
Yankton, SD 57078
(605) 668-1517
mmc.college.relations@mtmc.edu
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