Michael Keller, professor of piano at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, will give the debut performance of the Department of Music�s new Steinway piano on Sunday, March 5.

The event will be held in Michelsen Hall of the Noel Fine Arts Center at 3 p.m. Part of the Music Department Scholarship Series, admission is $6.75 for the general public, $3.75 for senior citizens, $2.75 for youth and free the day of the concert for students with UWSP ID. Tickets are available at the UWSP Box Office, Room 103A University Center, (715) 346-4100 or (800) 838-3378 or at the door if the concert is not sold out in advance.

The 9-foot concert grand piano was purchased as a part of the remodeling of the Noel Fine Arts Center. It was paid for with money from private donations to the Department of Music. Donors sponsored the instrument by "buying keys" at $1000 a piece. The names of donors have been engraved on the keys of the old Michelsen Hall piano, now on display in the lobby of Noel Fine Arts Center. Most of the piano�s 88 keys have been sold, but a few are still available for purchase. For more information, contact Kristin Duckart, development coordinator for the Department of Music, at (715) 346-8942.

Keller�s recital is the first in a series of events celebrating the new instrument. The recital program will include works by Haydn, Grieg, Strauss and Liszt and will feature selections for solo piano as well as duets for piano and voice with Susan Bender, assistant professor of voice at UWSP.

Keller has performed as a soloist and accompanist throughout the United States and Great Britain. As a member of the Lydian Trio, formed by Donald Peck, former principal flutist of the Chicago Symphony, he appeared throughout the Midwest and recorded for WFMT Radio in Chicago. As a soloist he has performed in numerous concert series including the Sunday Afternoon Live from the Elvehjem series, the Dame Myra Hess series, and St. Martin in the Fields series in London, England.

Bender also has appeared as a soloist with the Washington Opera, the Washington Bach Consort, the Iowa Bach Festival, Signature Theater, Interact Theater, the 20th Century Consort at the Smithsonian, the Garth Newel Chamber Players in Italy, and the Graz, Austria Festival Orchestra. She has recorded on the Norton, Foundry and Albany labels.

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rg/vc/ Keller Faculty Recital-March 06