Grace Hamilton Piano Festival begins Friday
Grace Hamilton, an Amarillo piano teacher during The Great Depression, is credited with helping begin the Amarillo symphony. Her legacy lives on each year at West Texas A&M University.
“I think this festival has been going for about 40 years,” said Denise Parr-Scanlin, piano professor and one of the festival organizers.
This year’s Grace Hamilton Piano Festival is on Friday, Feb. 28, and Saturday, Feb. 29. It will feature guest artist Andrew Brownell of the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas in Austin, as well as a workshop for music teachers.
“We don’t always have a workshop,” said Parr-Scanlin, who is organizing the festival along with fellow WTAMU faculty member Choo Hang-Nam. “Dr. Brownell will give a critique of some of our music students, and teachers can watch him teach in the morning.”
Dalcroze Eurhythmics specialist Dr. Jeremy Dittus will teach workshop participants about incorporating movement with music.
The guest artist performance is open to the public at 7:30 p.m. Friday in Mary Moody Northen Hall on the WTAMU campus. Cost is $10 for the public, but admission is free to festival participants, WT students and faculty with an ID.
Brownell, a second prize winner in the 2006 Leeds Piano Competition, will play works by Rachmaninoff, Debussy, and Shostakovich in concert, according to Nam.
“Critics regularly remark on his creative programming and interpretive insight,” according to the WT brochure announcing the concert. Musical Opinion described him as “potentially one of the most significant pianists of his generation.”
A winner of several prizes, Brownell has had performances aired on BBC radio and television, NPR in the United States and and the CBC (Canada), to name just a few. He has been a soloist with orchestras in Germany, England, and Canada and has made recital appearances in many venues, including Wigmore Hall and Salle Cortot.
Brownell is a native of Portland, Oregon, where he began studying the piano at the age of 4. His teachers have included Nancy Weems and Horacio Gutiérrez at the University of Houston; John Perry at the University of Southern California; and Joan Havill at the Guildhall School of Music in London, where he earned a doctorate. He joined the faculty of the Butler School of Music at UT Austin in 2017.
Saturday’s student festival at WT will conclude with a 2 p.m. honors recital in the Fine Arts Concert Hall. The public is invited to hear these young pianists, and there is no charge.
Teachers desiring to register for the Friday workshop can call Nam at 806-651-2851.
Tentative Workshop Schedule -- Friday, Feb. 28
- 8:30-9 a.m.Registration and coffee
- 9-11 a.m.Masterclass with Andrew Brownell
- 11-11:30 a.m.Break
- 11:30-1 p.m.Dalcroze session one: Dalcroze Eurhythmics: Musicianship from the Inside Out
- 1-2 p.m.Box lunch
- 2-3:30 p.m.Dalcroze Session two: Dalcroze Strategies and Techniques
- 3:45-4:45 p.m.Dalcroze Session three: Movement Vocabulary for Musical Concepts
Guest recital
Who: Andrew Brownell of the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas in Austin
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 28
Where: Mary Moody Northen Hall on the WTAMU campus
Cost: $10 for the public; free to festival participants, WT students and faculty with ID