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SUNY Potsdam's Crane School of Music to host alumnae for Feb. 12 performance

Posted 2/10/15

POTSDAM -- SUNY Potsdam's Crane School of Music will welcome two accomplished young alumnae for a performance Thursday, Feb. 12 at 7:30 p.m. in the Sara M. Snell Music Theater. The recital will …

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SUNY Potsdam's Crane School of Music to host alumnae for Feb. 12 performance

Posted

POTSDAM -- SUNY Potsdam's Crane School of Music will welcome two accomplished young alumnae for a performance Thursday, Feb. 12 at 7:30 p.m. in the Sara M. Snell Music Theater.

The recital will feature soprano Bridget Moriarty and pianist Erika Tazawa in concert.

"The Crane School of Music has welcomed back outstanding alumni performers for featured concerts each year since our 125th anniversary in 2011. We are delighted this month to have Bridget Moriarty and Erika Tazawa, two relatively recent graduates who are already earning accolades for their work, for a wonderful evening of vocal and piano music," said Crane School of Music Dean Dr. Michael Sitton.

In the first half of the recital, Moriarty will sing works by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Pauline Viardot, Francis Poulenc, Joseph Marx and Richard Strauss. She will be accompanied by Crane faculty members Kirk Severtson on piano and Douglas Rubio on guitar.

Tazawa will present works by Domenico Scarlatti, Alban Berg and Claude Debussy, as well as "eriAire," a piece by Crane School of Music faculty composer Gregory Wanamaker.

This event is free, and the public is invited to attend.

About the performers:

Bridget Moriarty, soprano, has performed with the Syracuse Symphony, Greensboro Opera, Syracuse Opera, Oswego Opera and the Society for New Music for whom she created the title role in the new opera, "Eleanor Roosevelt." Moriarty was most recently seen as part of the Greensboro Opera 2014 Gala, "GO to the Movies." Other credits include Lady Billows in "Albert Herring," Greensboro Opera's 2013 Gala, "Wine, Women and Song," Yum-Yum in "The Mikado," Lucette (Cinderella) in "Cendrillon" and Madame Euterpova in "Help, Help, the Globolinks!"

A native of Syracuse, she received a Master of Music degree in vocal performance from Syracuse University, where she studied with Janet Brown and later worked as an adjunct professor, teaching voice to music theatre and acting majors. She has a Bachelor of Music degree in music education with a concentration in piano and voice from SUNY Potsdam's Crane School of Music, where she studied with Deborah Massell and Gary Busch. Moriarty is currently pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and studies with Robert Wells.

With her unique artistic vision, pianist Erika Tazawa has captured audiences worldwide with her exhilarating performances. A Japanese native currently residing in the United States, Tazawa continues to explore innovative presentations of classical music. Hailed as "a superb collaborator, boldly undertaking the demanding keyboard parts with boundless technique, dynamic range and expressive understanding" by the American Record Guide, she regularly performs in solo and chamber music concerts across the U.S. and internationally.

In recent years, she has appeared in both the Classical Pianists of the Future and the Steinway at Spectrum series in New York City; as a concerto soloist with Sierra Vista Symphony, and as a collaborative piano artist-in-residence at the Hot Springs Music Festival. A winner of the prestigious Beverly Hills Auditions in 2013, Tazawa has appeared in various chamber series presented by Southern California Chamber Music Consortium in Los Angeles. Her performances have been featured in radio programs for BBC London and National Public Radio's "Performance Today." Also a passionate advocate of new works, her first album features solo piano music written after 2004, will be released internationally through Naxos in 2015. Tazawa holds both a bachelor's and a master's degree in piano performance from The Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam, where she studied with Paul Wyse, and served as a graduate assistant in collaborative piano. Tazawa is a member of the faculty at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., and performs as the principal pianist for Symphony Orchestra Augusta.

This concert will broadcast live at www.potsdam.edu/academics/Crane/streaming.

For more information visit www.potsdam.edu/crane.