Pealer Recital Hall, PAC

Frostburg State University’s Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance will open its fall season with a Faculty Artist Series concert by pianist Dr. Jay DeWire on Friday, Aug. 29, at 7:30 p.m. in the Pealer Recital Hall of FSU’s Woodward D. Pealer Performing Arts Center. The concert is free and open to the public. This event will also be livestreamed; follow the link at www.frostburg.edu/concerts.

DeWire will perform music by Debussy and Rachmaninoff. In some of Debussy’s published piano music, the programmatic titles appear at the end of the piece (rather than at the beginning, as is standard); and, in the spirit of this idiosyncrasy, the titles of Debussy’s works performed in the first half will be revealed as each piece concludes.

In the second half, DeWire will perform three of Rachmaninoff’s “Etudes-Tableaux, Op. 39” (Nos., 1, 3, and 8): picture-etudes whose programmatic elements were withheld by the composer. The recital will conclude with Rachmaninoff’s “Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 36” (revised version), wherein the Russian composer grapples with the legacies of Beethoven, Liszt, and Brahms, while putting his own definitive and virtuosic stamp on this classic genre.

DeWire has performed across the United States as a soloist, collaborator and member of the West Shore Piano Trio. Highlights include two performances as a soloist with the Prince George’s Philharmonic and concerts in Chautauqua, Los Angeles, and New Mexico with the West Shore Piano Trio. He has appeared in several competitions, received an honorable mention at the Washington, D.C., Beethoven Competition and was a finalist in the American Musicological Society (Mid-Atlantic Chapter) Writing Competition. DeWire has also received numerous prizes, including the Brander Wyatt Morrison Prize and a Dean of Faculty Fellowship at the University of Virginia. He is an assistant professor at FSU whose teaching interests include piano, pedagogy and music history.

Music, Performance, Recital