MEDIA CONTACT: Stacia Smith
561-297-2971, ssmith@fau.edu

FAU's School of the Arts Presents Gala Piano Concert

BOCA RATON, FL (June 8, 2004) - Florida Atlantic University's School of the Arts will present its annual summer Gala Piano Concert on Saturday, June 19 at 7 p.m. With works for two, three and four pianos, this concert has become an annual hit in South Florida. The event will be held in the Barry and Florence Lifelong Learning Auditorium on FAU's Boca Raton campus, 777 Glades Road.

Among the pieces that will be performed are "Flight of the Bumblebee" by Rimsky-Korsakov, "American in Paris" by George Gershwin, and "Al Capitan" and "The Stars and Stripes" by John Philip Sousa.

The concert will feature FAU's internationally acclaimed piano faculty, including Heather Coltman, Fedora Horowitz, Irena Kofman, Leonid Treer and Edward Turgeon, along with graduate students Joy Beach and Krisztina Kover. Coltman, chair of the department of music at FAU, is widely recognized as a solo and chamber musician. She received her doctor of musical arts degree from the University of Texas and has performed more than 400 recitals, concerto appearances and broadcasts in the United States, Canada, Switzerland, France and Germany. Kofman holds a doctor of musical arts degree from the University of Miami. She has toured extensively in Russia, and has also performed in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, Guatemala and the United States.

A native of Romania, Horowitz was the founder and director of the Lyric Chamber Ensemble in Detroit. She performed in Detroit for many years as a soloist and with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Treer was born in the former Soviet Union and received a master's degree from the prestigious Moscow Gnessin State Institute of Musical Pedagogics. He has performed throughout the former USSR, Europe, United States, Israel and the People's Republic of China.
A member of FAU's Duo Turgeon, Edward Turgeon enjoys a busy career as chamber musician and pedagogue. A graduate of Yale, he has performed and toured with noted instrumentalists, including Sidney Harth, James Campbell, Michael Rusinek and others.

Turgeon has also received many prizes and awards, including one at the Canadian Music Competition and another at the CIBC National Competitive Festival of Music.

The piano gala is part of FAU's TOPS summer music camp. The camp offers students from kindergarten through twelfth grade a weeklong immersion in music. Students can develop or enhance their skills, while being exposed to world-class teachers and performers.

General admission to the concert is $10, children accompanied by an adult are free. Family members of FAU TOPS music camp students may receive entry for $5, and all FAU faculty, staff and students may get in for free with ID. Tickets can be purchased by calling the FAU box office at 561-297-3737 or by writing to ucboxoffice@fau.edu. Tickets will also be available at the door two hours prior to the performance.

-FAU-