Posted 11:28 a.m. Friday, Nov. 11, 2022
Roger McVey is guest pianist at UW-La Crosse
A soloist and collaborative pianist who has performed throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia, Mexico and New Zealand will take the stage at UW-La Crosse.
American pianist Roger McVey will be featured in a piano recital at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 17, in the Annett Recital Hall in the Truman T. Lowe Center for the Arts. The performance is free and open to the public.
McVey has performed as a soloist and collaborative pianist worldwide. He is head of keyboard studies and associate professor of piano at the Lionel Hampton School of Music at the University of Idaho.
Mary Tollefson, chair and associate professor of piano at UWL, says she and McVey became colleagues when he was teaching at UW-River Falls. She’s excited to have him work with her students.
“Part of the reason to host Dr. McVey was his inclusion of pieces from the work ‘From the Southland’ by Harry T. Burleigh, an African-American composer from the early 20th century,” says Tollefson.
While "From the Southland" was Burleigh’s only work for solo piano, the successful composer introduced spirituals to Antonín Dvorák, the director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York at the time. Dvorák was inspired to use similar themes in his “New World Symphony.”
Other piano works on this program include Alexander Scriabin and Sergei Rachmaninoff. While Scriabin and Rachmaninoff were students together at the Moscow Conservatory, their paths diverged, Scriabin becoming the more well-known composer while Rachmaninoff became the more famous performer.
McVey will also coach UWL piano students in a master class Friday, Nov. 18.
“Master classes are valuable for the student performers, but also for interested musicians and teachers,” note Tollefson. “I always gain a ‘nugget’ that impacts my playing and teaching.”
His performance is sponsored by the UWL Music Department, an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Music.
Plan to attend
What: UWL Department of Music Guest Artist Recital
Who: Roger McVey
Program: Piano works by Bach, Burleigh, Scriabin and Rachmaninoff
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 17
Where: Annett Recital Hall, Truman T. Lowe Center for the Arts, 333 N. 16th St.
Admission: Free and open to the public