Saturday, March 17, 2007

Classical & Jazz piano in one package: Willis Delony, solo piano concert at Centenary College Mon, Mar 19, 8 pm


Willis Delony
Originally uploaded by trudeau.
Willis Delony, recording artist for Centaur Records, will perform Mozart, Schumann, David Baker's Jazz Dance Suite (1989), Bill Dobbins's Prelude III in F Major and John Lewis's Afternoon in Paris at Centenary College, says Lynn Stewart.

The concert is at 8 p.m. Monday, March 19 in the Anderson Auditorium of the Hurley Music Building. The show is free and open to the public.

Says his bio: Delony has won national and international acclaim as a jazz and classical pianist, conductor, chamber player, commercial composer and arranger. His explorations of the jazz and classical piano worlds have been showcased in a recording entitled, A New World A' Comin' — Classical and Jazz Connections (Centaur). In Fanfare magazine Peter Burwasser wrote: "(Delony) plays with gusto and finesse, and with an especially nimble rhythmic sensibility, a proper combination of attributes for jazz, or any other kind of music-making, for that matter."

Previous album credits include a recording of sonatas by Samuel Barber and Sergei Prokofiev, also on the Centaur label, and a jazz album, Civilized Conversations, featuring Delony and bassist Bill Grimes. He is featured in a collaboration with bassoonist William Ludwig on the recent recording, Rhapsody in Bassoon, on Mark Records. Most recently, he recorded an album called Odds Against Tomorrow – Classical and Jazz Connections II, to be released by Centaur records.

Delony is a prof at LSUBR and a former faculty member at Southeastern Louisiana University.

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