Western to hold piano performances April 17 and 23

Western Washington University’s College of Fine and Performing Arts will host a pair of piano performances at its Performing Arts Center Concert Hall on April 17 and 23.

Milica Jelača Jovanović and Marija Ilić will perform a piano duo recital at 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 17; the evening’s program includes works by Robert Alexander Schumann, Franz Schubert, Sergei Prokovfiev, and Johann Sebastian Bach, including Schumann’s “Andante and Variations, op. 46.”

Jovanović is a member of the piano faculty at Western and Ilić is an internationally-known performer and teacher with appearances at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York City.

The event is free and open to the public.

Christina Dahl and Oksana Ezhokina will perform an evening of four-handed piano pieces courtesy of Western's Department of Music at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, April 23.

Dahl has established a reputation as one of the leading piano teachers of her generation, working for nearly 20 years in the Stony Brook University Music department, a program that has fostered eclectic pianists whose careers range from Bang On a Can and Yarn/Wire membership to prizewinning in the Cleveland Competition, the Gina Bachauer, the Orleans and other international solo competitions. She has directed chamber music jointly with the Emerson Quartet at Stony Brook for more than 10 years. She is on the faculty at the Yellow Barn Music Festival and School, and for many years has traveled to Leavenworth to participate in two festivals at the Icicle Creek Center for the Arts. Her principal teachers were Ann Schein at the Peabody Conservatory, Gilbert Kalish, and Marjorie Duncan Baker whose 1927 Steinway she still plays.

Ezhokina has soloed with the Seattle Symphony; St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic and Tacoma Symphony; and performed in venues such as the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.; Benaroya Hall in Seattle; Davies Orchestra Hall in San Francisco; and Klassik Keyifler Festival in Turkey. She has premiered works by Marilyn Shrude, Wayne Horvitz, Bern Herbolsheimer, and Laura Kaminsky. She has been featured on multiple live radio broadcasts on such stations as WFMT-Chicago, KUOW and KING FM in Seattle. Her collaborations include concerts with the Seattle Chamber Players, Avalon String Quartet, violinists Ian Swensen and Andrew Jennings, and cellists Johannes Moser and Anthony Elliott, among others.

Ezhokina holds a doctorate in of Musical Arts in Piano Performance from Stony Brook University and is currently chair of the Piano Program and an assistant professor of Music at Pacific Lutheran University. She is also artistic director of several flagship classical music programs at the Icicle Creek Center for the Arts, including the International Chamber Music Festival/Institute and Winter Piano Festival.

The April 23 performance will include four-handed pieces by Maurice Ravel, William Bolcom, and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Tickets are $9-$16 and are available at ticket.wwu.edu, by calling 360-650-6146, or at the door. All proceeds from the event benefit Western's Department of Music.