Welcome to another Kiser Piano blogpost! And in this one we mostly celebrate the achievements and musical bravery of our students and various musical activities of the Kisers.
Wingate University Piano Competition 2025, Sonia O. and Jireh H. placed 1st and 2nd respectively. They are some of our most talented younger students and will go FAR. Their musical skills coming from an unteachable place.
Lisa and me (David) performed a piano duo concert at the Temple of Israel in early February. This was a favorite performance or ours. The music, early Romantic composers, was especially difficult to play well, but supposedly this was the first standing ovation of any Music on Sunday Series concert in recent memory! Praise that I can appreciate. Beethoven's 5th in this arrangement was just a beautiful experience. We hope to play it again soon.
In other news Lisa was celebrated at the Greenville Symphony earlier this year for 10 years as the Principal Keyboardist. The amount of music she has played is just staggering and this for piano/celeste in an orchestral setting, an often infrequent instrument used in the symphony orchestra setting. See her C.V. (to Winter 2025) for Orchestral work only to get an idea:
A number of our talented piano students also play another instrument at a high enough level to be in the highest ensemble of Greenville County Youth Orchestra called the Young Artist Orchestra. They recently played at the Kennedy Center in D. C. Congrats to Amy, Benjamin, and Sonia. As part of the trip we heard the Baltimore Symphony in Rachmaninoff's 1st Concerto and heard the coolest rendition of the Romanian Rhapsody led by compatriot Macelaru and visited various memorials. I took a picture of a display box at the Kennedy Center featuring John F. Kennedy's passion for the arts and look who it is but Carson McCullers, the famous Southern novelist from Columbus, GA who was also a very fine pianist who had ambitions to study at Juilliard. Also pictured in the back stage area of Kennedy Center is a signed picture of the pianist Peter Serkin, whose Schubert G major phonograph recording I have been listening to a lot at home.
Let's see, so many other musical events happening this year with the students...like our winter recital at Steinway Piano Gallery in Greenville. The young students all got to play on the "Clemson Orange" piano that sounded very good. I always sit outside to watch the doors so all the pictures are from the same angle:
The recital was organized to help the students prepare for their 2025 NFMC competition. Please see the results here:
Also congratulations to the nearly clean sweep winners (Andrew, Nathan, Yuchen, Roger, Jireh, Hasset, Brian, Joseph and Madison) from the Kiser studio of the Newberry College competition called the W. Darr Wise Piano Competition. From the organizer:
"Congratulations to all the students who performed today! We had really fantastic performances this year, and it was a very difficult decision to select the prize winners.
I will be emailing the comment sheets early this week. Thank you all for a wonderful day of music!
Division I:
First Prize: Andrew Ning
Second Prize: Nathan Wicker
Third Prize (tie): Yuchen Lin and Isabel Bean
Honorable Mention: Eleanore Tarpley
Division II:
First Prize: Roger Luo
Second Prize (tie): Jireh Hipolito and Ezra Beben
Third Prize: Hasset Ayalew
Honorable Mention: Bryan Ouyang
Division III:
First Prize: Joseph Shevchenko
Second Prize: Madison Barber
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. I hope this was a positive experience for you!"
Sarah Masterson
Director of W. Darr Wise Piano Competition
Newberry College
We were also so proud of two of our students who took their playing to another level and offered their skills to accompany their school choir. To accompany a choir in 4th and 5th grade is an incredible accomplishment. Congrats to Alan B. and Eleanor K for their performances at Green Charter Elementary Christmas Concert:
Two of our students Amy Ding and Sonia Okunev were finalists in Greenville County Youth Orchestra's "Mozart Madness" Concerto Competition, they played the first movements of Concerto No. 21, and No. 9. They will perform this music on April 4 at White Oak Baptist Church with second piano. EDIT: And how could I forget that Benjamin Webb (back row far left) was chosen as the soloist (albiet on Cello). You can hear him solo with the orchestra at Peace Center Gunter Theatre on March 8.
And to close off the this blog a few more pictures of the musical activities of the Kiser Studio. Read the captions. Also I (David) have been making some changes to On the Keys which you can hear on South Carolina Public Radio Thursdays at 8 PM to incorporate more cultural references from works of literature. It's still about the piano!
That's all, thanks for reading!
EDIT 2/23/25: And I forgot about the first Bach competition hosted by SC Bach and sponsored by the Bichels. Our student Yuchen was a finalist. Please see the comment from Lisa below for more about it and the talent hunt competition.
