Pianists Sylvia Hong and Michael Rector will present a guest piano duo on April 7.The Department of Music of Delta State University will present a guest piano duo recital by pianists Sylvia Hong and Michael Rector April 7 at 7:30 p.m. in the Recital Hall of the Bologna Performing Arts Center. This recital will feature works from two pianos and piano four hands by John Adams, Francis Poulenc, Claude Debussy and Sergei Rachmaninoff .
Hong and Rector have been playing together for eleven years. The first ten were devoted to playing together informally and the last year professionally. Their first public recital together was in February 2012, at the Belhaven University Center for the Arts in Jackson. They have since concertized extensively in the U.S. and abroad.
The pair has achieved considerable success performing for enthusiastic audiences at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., at two sold-out concerts in Busan, Korea and won the 2nd prize and the Abild prize for the best performance of American music in the Ellis Competition for Duo-Pianists, sponsored by the National Federation of Music Clubs in 2013. Also, a successful campaign on the crowd-funding website Kickstarter.com led to a commission of new music from composer Jonathan Kolm that explores the intersections of science and music.
Rector holds the doctoral degree from Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Phillip Kawin. Currently, he is an instructor of music and artist-in-residence at Oklahoma Panhandle State University. Hong, named by the Korea Times as Musician of the Year for 2012, is currently serving as Assistant Professor of Piano at Belhaven University.
In December 2011 Rector and Hong married. This piano duo recital is free and open to the public. For more information call the Delta State University Department of Music at (662) 846-4615.
