UM's MASTER MUSICIAN SERIES PRESENTS PIANIST JOAN YARBROUGH
Oct 6th, 2004
MOBILE, Ala. - The University of Mobile's Master Musician Series will present a master class featuring pianist Joan Yarbrough on Monday, Oct. 18.The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held from 1:30-2:30 p.m. in Moorer Auditorium in Martin Hall on the UM campus.
Yarbrough will instruct a master class that includes University of Mobile piano majors Deena O'Dillon, Amanda Davis, Lori Sanders, Alicia Diehl and Philip Mathis. Yarbrough will also discuss the disciplines inherent in the study of music.
She will present a program for the Mobile Music Teachers Association on Oct. 19, 8 p.m. at Christ United Methodist Church sanctuary. The concert will feature the works of Schubert, Rachmaninoff, Schumann and Debussy. Cost is $2 for students, $5 for adults. For information about the UM Master Musician Series or the Mobile Music Teachers Association concert, call the UM Center for Performing Arts at (241) 442-2420.
Yarbrough began piano lessons in Boston at the age of 4, playing the Beethoven First Piano Concerto in concert at the age of seven. Academic institutions she attended include the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music; Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria; and the Royal Academy of Music in London, England, where her piano professor was Franz Reizenstein.
Over the course of 32 years as a member of the duo-piano team John Yarbrough and Robert Cowan, Yarbrough played over 400 concerts on three continents. Her commitment to duo-pianism included commissioning, premiering, editing and recording a number of works, both with and without orchestra. She performed with such orchestras as the Royal and Moscow Philharmonics and the radio orchestras of East Berlin and Slovenian Radio and Television. Her duo-piano recordings are still heard worldwide.
More recently, she recorded the Paul Creston "Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra" with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of its music director, Maestro Paul Freeman. The recording has been released on the Albany Records label.
In addition, Yarbrough served for 29 years at the University of Montevallo where she was artist-in-residence and tenured professor. Highlights of her career there included chair of the music department, head of the graduate program in music, and coordinator of recruitment for the College of Fine Arts. She was also a member of the artist faculty of the Brevard Music Center for 10 years. Since 1996 she has held the position of Recording Projects Coordinator for the Czech National Symphony Orchestra.