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The Cherry Hill Foundation will present its annual student concert in Inez on Sunday, June 12^th at 3:00 PM. East Carolina Professor of Piano Dr. Keiko Sekino will introduce five of her most gifted students to the Cherry Hill audience. The students, who are in either the undergraduate or graduate programs at East Carolina, have displayed unusual talent and even at their young ages have experience in teaching and performing while pursuing degrees at the Greenville university.

Brandon Banks began musical studies at age 14 in his hometown of New Bern. This spring he graduated from East Carolina with a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education. He was named the Outstanding Senior Student in the Keyboard Department. After graduate school, Brandon hopes to pursue a career in New York City as an accompanist.

Sydney Lukert began studying piano at the age of nine. She attended the North Carolina School of the Arts and has attended Brevard Music Center and the Eastern Music Festival. At ECU Sydney is majoring in piano performance and is an active performer of both solo and chamber music.

Irem Ozay, a native of Turkey, has lived in the US since the age of seven. She began studying piano at the age of 8 and studied at the Raleigh Conservatory of Music until 2009. Irem has been teaching piano since the age of 14 and had 40 students in her studio last year. She has been awarded a full graduate assistantship to East Carolina starting in the fall of 2016, where she will work toward her Master of Music degree.

Anna Beth Rucker began studying piano at the age of 5. She received a Bachelor of Music degree at East Carolina, graduating Summa Cum Laude in the spring of 2015. She was named the Outstanding Senior Student of the ECU Keyboard Department that year. She has taught piano since she was 15 and plans to continue graduate studies in Piano Pedagogy.

Matthew Young grew up in Rocky Mount where he began playing saxophone in the 6^th grade and then began piano studies at age 13. A graduate of Rocky Mount Academy, Matthew served as pianist for Stonewall Manor, accompanied groups at competitions and performances and currently plays for services in local churches. He has just completed his freshman year at East Carolina where he is pursuing a degree in Piano Performance. He is the grandson of Herbert Charles Davis, formerly of Warrenton.

The program will include solo works by Brahms, Greig, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Liszt, and Prokofiev, and Brahms Waltzes Op. 39 for four hands.

There will be no admission charged for this event, although donations will be gratefully accepted. Following the performance, refreshments will be served in the dining room of the 1850’s plantation home of the George Washington Alston family.

Cherry Hill’s spring concert series, A Celebration of the Piano, reaches a crescendo on May 22nd with the performances of Andrew Willis and six of his most gifted graduate students from UNC-Greensboro. Dr. Willis, Professor of Music at UNCG, is well-known for his work with various keyboard instruments and his commitment to the study, performance and teaching of the widest possible range of repertoire. In past performances at Cherry Hill and on the Greensboro campus, Dr. Willis and other professors of music have presented the biannual Focus on Piano featuring immersion into the life and compositions of one composer. This year he and his students will delight their audience with a performance of works by a number of musical geniuses as they play compositions of Brahms, Debussey, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Faure, von Weber, and Moscheles.

In addition to performing individually on the magnificent Steinway concert grand, some of the pianists will perform on two pianos. Dr. Willis relishes the opportunity to work with these incredibly talented students from all over the United States. They include Walton Lott and Colin McDearman from Mississippi; Karl Metzger from Ohio; Stephanie Schmidt from Wisconsin; Robin Morace from New York; and Daniel Seyfried from Idaho. The concert will begin at 3:00 PM, and admission is taken at the door. The price of the performance is $10 for adults, $5 for students, and free admission for children 12 and under. A reception in the dining room of the 1850’s plantation home of the Alston family will follow the performance.

Concerts at Cherry Hill for the spring series will comprise “A Celebration of the Piano”. Featuring the venue’s renowned Steinway Concert Grand, pianists will perform a variety of keyboard works during the 2016 spring months. The initial performance in the series will take place on February 21^st. Dr. Vincent van Gelder will make his first appearance at Cherry Hill. The recipient of numerous awards and rave reviews, van Gelder’s performance will feature Beethoven’s “Appassionata” Sonato. Also included will be van Gelder’s arrangement of a fantasy on the Dance of the Miller by De Falla, two numbers from “Romeo and Juliet” by Prokofiev, Dumka by Tchaikovsky, and three compositions by Franz Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 3; Etude d’execution transcendant No 11; and the Paganini Etude No. 6

The performance in April will feature a return to Cherry Hill by Mayron Tsong, always an audience favorite. In May, Dr. Andrew Willis will appear along with some of his most promising graduate students. The spring celebration will conclude in June with recitals by outstanding piano students in the Department of Music at East Carolina.

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