Don’t Miss Larry’s Concerto!

Don’t miss the broadcast of Larry Schanker’s first piano concerto on radio station WAUS this Sunday, November 20th at 6:00 PM Michigan time.

Photo credit: All photos of the Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra by Alden J. Ho Photography.

I am delighted to announce that our good friend, the amazingly talented pianist and composer, Larry Schanker, has performed his first piano concerto — Concerto for Jazz Piano — with the Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra. Better yet, we’ll all get a chance to listen to it on Sunday November 20th – by clicking this link at 6:00 PM Michigan time.

http://www.andrews.edu/WAUS/listen.html

Larry was the Practical Theatre Company’s first musical director, and played keys for our comedy revues at the Piper’s Alley Theatre: The Golden Jubiliee, Megafun and Babalooney (with Rockin’ Ronny Crawford hitting the skins.) Larry also worked with us on the development of our musical, “Rock Me!” for the Columbia College New Musical project in 1988. He’s also a lifetime member of Riffmaster & The Rockme Foundation.

But Larry is also one of those longhair serious classical artists — and he’s been busy in the past year writing his first piano concerto, preparing the orchestral parts over the summer, and, as he says, “practicing more than I have in many years to make sure I could play the darned thing.”

On Sunday, Larry’s performance with the Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra will be broadcast on a local Michigan university radio station, WAUS. Larry says it may only be accessible in real time.

Techincal note: Mac users will need an updated version of Flip4Mac, the program that enables Quicktime to read Windows Media Player files.

Here’s a link to the concert program and program notes.

http://www.smso.org/Concerts/Mendel2.html

Larry’s on the bill with some guys named Aaron Copland and Dvorak.

So, tune in to Larry’s concerto Sunday evening and get a taste of the talent that so many of his friend have marveled at over the years.

Congratulations, maestro Schanker!