Thanks to a generous gift 16 years ago, the Setnor School of Music has had a long and storied history. Now it’s time to pay respect to its two major benefactors.

Wednesday at 8 p.m., a concert will be held in Setnor Auditorium in Crouse College to pay tribute to the late Jules and Rose Setnor. The married couple generously donated $3.2 million in 1997, which has helped keep the school up and running. The concert’s main goal is to recognize the Setnors for their contributions, said Patrick Jones, Setnor’s director, in an email.

“It will be a great concert with excellent music played by outstanding performers,” Jones said.

The concert, which is free and open to the public, also kicks off the school’s fundraising campaign to become an All-Steinway school. Jones said the goal is to raise $2.5 million by the end of the school year to obtain Steinway equipment, which is top-notch when it comes to the quality of pianos.

Faculty members in the music school’s keyboard program organized the concert, which will feature students and staff playing the piano and the auditorium’s famous Holtkamp Organ. They will perform works by several of the most famous classical piano composers, including Frédéric Chopin, George Gershwin and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

“The audience will be treated to a variety of music, including classical and jazz, and to performances by soloists, duos and quartets,” Jones said.

The Setnors shared a love for music — the main reason behind their large donation — and all of the following performers will perform as a way to carry on that tradition.

• Bill DiCosimo, an assistant professor of music in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, is typically a contemporary jazz and Latin rock keyboard player but has played classical music while performing across the United States.
• Amy Giller Heyman and her husband Steve Heyman are keyboard instructors in Setnor, and frequently perform duets with each other. In addition, they have traveled widely while playing as soloists.
• Ida Tili-Trebicka, a part-time assistant professor of music, and Kathleen Haddock, a keyboard instructor and vocal coach, will close out the night’s concert by performing on a single piano, while the Heymans will play together on another piano. The foursome is called “Forty Fingers.”
• Fred Karpoff, a professor of piano and collaborative arts in Setnor, is a 2011 winner of the Frances Clark Keyboard Pedagogy Award presented by Music Teachers National Association. He won the award for co-producing the 3-D Piano Method in 2009, which is a multiple-part DVD series and book that inform the audience about a full body approach to piano playing and teaching used by many pianists and instructors around the world.
• Kola Owolabi is an associate professor of music in Setnor who plays at weekly chapel services and organizes the Malmgren Concert Series at Hendricks Chapel. He is a published composer and has been recognized by the Royal Canadian College of Organists and the Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto.
• Rick Montalbano, a keyboard instructor who also has an expertise in playing jazz piano, will play an original piece called “One More Time With Love,” alongside Bill DiCosimo.
• Meng Li, a graduate music major in VPA, will perform Grande Polonaise Brillante, Op. 22 by Frédéric Chopin.
• John Wassmuth, a freshman music major in VPA, will perform Etude in C Major, Op. 40, No. 1 by Nikolai Kapustin.

Published on November 5, 2013 at 11:46 pm

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