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 Penn State is pleased to announce the
2010 Marian Garcia Piano Competition and Piano Teachers’ Workshop
with Special Guest Nelita True
of the Eastman School of Music
and the Penn State Piano Faculty
Enrico Elisi, Timothy Shafer, Steven Smith
at the School of Music, University Park campus of Penn State
Esber Recital Hall, October 1-2, 2010.
Nelita True
Since Nelita True made her debut at age seventeen with the Chicago Symphony in Orchestra Hall and her New York debut with the Juilliard Orchestra in Avery Fisher Hall, her career has taken her to the major cities of Western and Eastern Europe, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, Mexico, Iceland, New Zealand, Brazil, Australia, Canada, and to Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as to all fifty states in America. She was a visiting professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in Russia, performing and conducting master classes and has been in the People's Republic of China more than 20 times for recitals and master classes. She has played recitals on French national television and on Australian national radio. Her most recent recital in Boston was cited as one of the "Ten Best Classical Performances of the Year." She will perform and give classes in India next fall. Ms. True has been a jury member for the China International Piano Competition (Beijing), the Queen Sonja International Piano Competition (Oslo), the National piano Competition in Brazil, the Horowitz Competition (Kiev), the Concours de Musique in Canada, the PTNA (Tokyo), the Lev Vlassenko Competition in Australia, and the Gina Bachauer, New Orleans, Hilton Head, and William Kapell International Piano Competitions in the U.S. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Michigan as a student of Helen Titus, Ms. True went on to Juilliard to study with Sascha Gorodnitzki, and then earned the DMA with Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory. In Paris, she studied with Nadia Boulanger on a Fulbright grant. Formerly Distinguished Professor at the University of Maryland, Ms. True is currently Professor of Piano at the Eastman School of Music. Many of her students have won top prizes at national and international competitions, including an unprecedented five First Prizes in national MTNA competitions. Ms. True was awarded the Certificate of Merit by the Alumni Association of the University of Michigan, the Eisenhart Award for Excellence in Teaching at Eastman, the 2002 Achievement Award from the Music Teachers’ National Association, the Lifetime Achievement Award in Graduate Teaching from the University of Rochester, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Keyboard Pedagogy Conference (USA). S and H Productions of Kansas City produced a series of four videotapes, "Nelita True at Eastman," featuring her performances, lectures, and teaching. These videos are currently being seen on five continents. She has been the subject of feature articles in Clavier, Piano Today, The European Piano Teachers' Journal, and was the subject of the cover story of Keyboard Companion. An interview with Ms. True appears in the latest edition of James Bastien's "How to Teach Piano Successfully," along with interviews with the legendary Rosina Lhevinne and Adele Marcus. Ms. True has been invited to record over 100 works for Advance, Mark, Educo, and Academy Records.
"Nelita True's recital...was an artistic and popular triumph."
— The Washington Post
"True is an extraordinary pianist and exemplary musician...many a lyric soprano would covet the way (she) can turn a phrase."
— The Boston Globe
"Listening to Miss True was a memorable experience. Rarely have I heard anything so sublimely poetic."
— Kansas City Times
Enrico Elisi joined the Penn State faculty in 2008. He regularly performs and gives master classes in Europe, America, and Asia. He has appeared as a soloist with several orchestras in the US, Italy, and Portugal. He was featured as a recitalist in several radio broadcasts. In 2008 a German radio station hosted a two-and-a-half-hour program about Mr. Elisi. With his versatility he has garnered top awards at such diverse venues as the Venice Competition - which brought him a performance at the famous La Fenice theatre, in Italy - and the Oporto International Competition - which led to a broadcast for Portuguese national television. An active chamber musician, Mr. Elisi has collaborated with many renowned artists and has also performed at the Taos and Ravinia Festivals. Mr. Elisi is equally at home with the standard repertoire as well as new music. He enjoys working with living composers and has premiered several works (some of which were dedicated to him) at debut recitals in Toulouse, France; Carnegie Recital Hall; as well as other venues in North and South America. He is the founder and artistic director of the Green Valley Chamber Music Festival, and he has previously directed the Piano Institute of the Las Vegas Music Festival. He is also active nationally and internationally as an adjudicator. Mr. Elisi worked extensively with Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, where he served as his mentor's assistant during his master's and doctoral degrees. Mr. Elisi also holds two Italian degrees from the Conservatory of Florence and the International Piano Academy of Imola where he studied with Lazar Berman.
Timothy Shafer received the Pennsylvania Music Teachers Association Teacher of the Year Award for 1997. He teaches studio piano and coordinates the class piano and piano pedagogy programs at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Shafer earned the bachelor of music degree in piano performance from the Oberlin Conservatory, where he won several performing awards, including the Rudolf Serkin Outstanding Pianist Award. He received master's and doctoral degrees in piano performance from Indiana University, where he was the winner of the prestigious annual Concerto Competition, performing the Tchaikowsky Concerto in B-flat minor.Shafer appeared in Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall in 1995 as member of Duo Concertant and returned in 1997 for his solo debut. In addition to maintaining an active solo recital and chamber music schedule in the United States, he has concertized, taught and adjudicated in South America and Asia. He is an active master-class clinician and competition adjudicator throughout the country for professional music organizations and colleges, and is a frequent soloist with many regional orchestras. Shafer is the co-author of Class Piano for Adult Beginners, published by Prentice-Hall. His articles on piano teaching have appeared in the Piano Pedagogy Forum and in the American Music Teacher. He has recently completed a six year span of service on the board of the National Conference of Keyboard Pedagogy, serving as co-chair for the Student Committee.
Steven Herbert Smith has performed recitals and concertos throughout the world and has recorded solo recitals for the French, German, and Spanish national radios, Radio 4 Hong Kong, and America’s PBS. To see reviews, follow the links below. His compact discs appear on the Cambria and Innova labels. He has given many master classes and lecture recitals for universities and teacher associations in the United States and abroad, including the University of Melbourne, Australia, Hong Kong’s Academy of Performing Arts, and Glasgow’s Royal Scottish Academy among others. Recently he has focused on a comprehensive series of recitals of Beethoven’s sonata and other repertoire. He received critical acclaim for his series of new-music solo recitals, Piano Entente, presented at Merkin Concert Hall in New York and at St. John’s Smith Square, London. Smith was honored in 2005 with the PSU College of Arts and Architecture’s Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching; previously he won the Teacher of the Year Award of the Pennsylvania Music Teachers’ Association. His students have won significant national awards, including the Fulbright Scholarship and the Clara Wells Competition of the Matthay Association. In the Music Teachers National Association competitions since 1991, four of his Penn State students have been national semifinalists (Pennsylvania winners). Steven Herbert Smith received a bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Baylor University and Master’s and D.M.A. degrees from The Eastman School of Music, as well as an Artist’s Diploma from the Mozarteum of Salzburg, Austria, where he was a Fulbright scholar. His teachers included Cécile Genhart and Kurt Neumüller.
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