MASNO and the New Orleans Jazz Museum present Sentimental and Stirring: Piano Music of Gottschalk performed by Peter Collins on Friday, May 10, 7:00pm. Tickets are $20.00, available at the door or online here.
About the Artist:
New Orleans-based pianist Peter Collins holds the distinction of Professor Emeritus from Missouri State University where he taught and served as coordinator of the keyboard area for twenty-five years. He began his formal piano studies in New Orleans with Melvin Alford and received his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Peabody Conservatory under the instruction of Lillian Freundlich. After winning awards in several piano competitions (the Washington International Piano Competition, the University of Maryland International Piano Competition, the American Chopin Competition, the American Beethoven Foundation) he received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The University of Michigan as a student of Louis Nagel. He has served on the faculties of the Interlochen Arts Academy, the Missouri Fine Arts Academy and the Bösendorfer International Piano Academy in Vienna.
Peter Collins has performed a wide variety of repertoire ranging from the complete piano sonatas of Beethoven and Mozart to recently composed works. At Missouri State University, he originated the Missouri Chamber Players and toured Scandinavia three times with members of the ensemble in concerts of music by American composers. His important European appearances also include solo performances at the Chopin Academy of Music (Warsaw) and the Liszt Academy of Music (Budapest). As a concerto soloist he has collaborated with the Polish State Orchestra (Jelenia Góra), the Florida State Orchestra, the New Orleans Symphony, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, the Springfield Symphony and the Chamber Orchestra of the Ozarks. Peter Collins has completed nine compact-disc recording projects (for the Albany, MSR and Centaur labels) featuring works of living American composers, music by women composers, original arrangements and transcriptions and piano music of nineteenth-century New Orleans. He has performed regularly in the city since 1980 and has been heard in many of the area’s universities and recital venues as well as on New Orleans public radio and television.