"With acclaimed guest pianist Maria Garzón waiting in the wings, officials from West Texas A&M University and Amarillo College will ratify a formal agreement on Sept. 4 to ensure the seamless transfer of credit hours in music from AC to WTAMU.
The signing of an Articulation Agreement will strengthen the academic bonds between the WTAMU and AC music programs. The signing ceremony will take place at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 4 in the lobby of AC’s Concert Hall Theater as the prelude to a 7:30 p.m. lecture-recital with international concert pianist Garzón in the Concert Hall Theater. Her presentation will focus on the life and music of composer Viktor Ullmann, who created a library of works while confined to the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
The lecture-recital at AC will include a documentary featuring interviews by Garzón with pianist Alice Herz-Sommer who knew Ullmann at the concentration camp. Ullmann died at Auschwitz, but much of his music and poetry survived. In addition to the documentary, Dr. Robert Hansen, director of the WTAMU School of Music, will provide readings of Ullmann’s poetry. Immediately following the recital, Temple B’nai Israel will host a reception, and Garzón, who recently completed her recordings of Ullmann’s piano works, will have CDs available for purchase.
On Wednesday, Sept. 5, Garzón will be on the WTAMU campus to meet with history classes and give a piano master class with students from WTAMU and AC from 2:30-4 p.m. in the Sybil B. Harrington Fine Arts Complex, Recital Hall. All events—signing ceremony, lecture-recital and master class—are free and open to the public.
Garzón’s presentations will explore the life and talent of Ullmann. He was a law student in 1918 when he began studying composition under Arnold Schoenberg in Vienna. Ullman later moved to Prague and devoted his life to music through works that reflected Schoenberg’s influence but still had its own distinctive voice and style. By 1938, the political situation was dire and marked the start of the deportation of the Jewish population to concentration camps. In September 1942, Ullmann, whose parents were of Jewish descent, was transported to the concentration camp north of Prague. There he was able to continue working on his music and composed more than 20 works at the ghetto.
Garzón was born in Madrid, where she began her musical studies. She later studied piano in Salzburg at the Mozarteum and earned music degrees from universities in Lubeck and Cologne, Germany. She has performed in venues around the world, including Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall as well as recitals in Istanbul, Glascow and the Atheneum in Greece and tours in Norway and Sweden. In addition to the piano works of Ullmann, Garzón’s recordings include the complete piano works of Joaquin Rodrigo and Jan Dussek. Garzón lives in London where she combines her performing career with teaching.
For more information about Garzón’s presentations, contact Chris Garcia at 806-651-2840 or crgarcia@wtamu.edu or Tiffany McDaniel at 806-371-5340 or tljackson26@actx.edu."
-West Texas A&M University
