University of Kansas music students this week will learn from visiting professional musicians. The classes and a series of concerts featuring the renowned pianist, violinist and cellist are also free for the public to attend.
In conjunction with Mid-America Performing Arts Alliance’s (MAPAA) Youth Outreach Initiative, KU School of Music students will participate in several masterclasses, according to a news release. Community members are invited to attend, too.
Additionally, Zlatomir Fung, Felix Olschofka, Sohee Kwon and others will perform in free concerts in Lawrence and Kansas City this week as part of MAPAA’s 2023-24 season.
The masterclasses are set to take place Wednesday, Nov. 8 on the KU campus. All are free of cost and open to the public, and no registration is required.
Pianist Kwon will teach a masterclass for piano students at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday at Swarthout Recital Hall. Cellist Fung, the youngest cellist ever to win the grand prize at the XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition, will then teach a masterclass to cello students at 4 p.m. in Room 123 of Murphy Hall. Also at 4 p.m., violinist Olschofka, in addition to the music director of University of Nebraska-Lincoln Glenn Korff School of Music, will teach a masterclass to violin students in Room 118 of Murphy Hall.
Concerts are scheduled for Friday and Saturday, Nov. 10 to 11. The first will be hosted in North Kansas City, and two more will be hosted in Lawrence. All are free to attend and open to the public, and there are no tickets required.
To kick off the concerts, MAPAA and its guest artists will join a Kansas Public Radio broadcast on 91.5 FM at 11 a.m. Friday, Nov. 10. They’ll chat with Cordelia Brown about their upcoming performances and love for classical music. The first concert, “Romantic Greats,” is scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 10 at Pine Ridge Presbyterian Church in North Kansas City.
Olschofka and Kwon will perform in a concert, “Brahms and the Schumanns,” at 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 11, at the chapel of the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center, 1631 Crescent Road in Lawrence. Olschofka and Kwon will “highlight the dramatic love triangle that spiraled between Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms,” according to the release.
In the third concert, Fung will perform alongside Tatiana Tessman, who is the 2006 World Piano Competition Grand Prize winner and MAPAA artistic director, in an interpretation of Rachmaninoff’s Sonata for Cello and Piano. The concert is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 11 at KU’s Swarthout Recital Hall, 1530 Naismith Drive in Lawrence.
MAPAA is a Kansas nonprofit organization dedicated to hosting acclaimed guest musicians and local artists to teach, mentor and perform with young Midwestern musicians.
Visit mapaa.org for more information about MAPAA and its 2023-24 season. Donations can also be made via the website.
If our local journalism matters to you, please help us keep doing this work.
Don’t miss a beat … Click here to sign up for our email newsletters
Latest Lawrence news:
Cuyler Dunn/Lawrence Times
