SOSU Musical Arts Series Presents November 17 Concert
11-06-2006
The Southeastern Oklahoma State University Musical Arts Series presents the Steger International Artist Series, featuring the Long Sisters Piano Duo. This concert is presented in celebration of the birthday of Mrs. Ruth Steger, founder of the Steger International Artist Series. The concert will take place November 17 at 7:30 P.M. in the Fine Arts Recital Hall. The duo will conduct a masterclass for area pianists on November 18. There is no admission charge for either event.
Long Duo
Beatrice Long and Christina Long, pianists
Hailed as artists who play with ‘cohesiveness of purpose, absolute accuracy of execution and a near-spiritual transparency’, the Long sisters placed first in the 1997 Ellis Duo Piano Competition sponsored by the National Federation of Music Clubs. In addition to the First Prize, the Long Duo also won the Best Performance of American Music Award, and was immediately invited to perform throughout the United States, Canada and Asia. Their performances were broadcast on National Public Radio, WRR in Dallas among others. In a raving review from the Washington Post, the Long sisters were praised for ‘putting new life into duo piano recitals’.
Most recently, Long Duo performed in the Weill Recital Hall Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center New York, Dallas Museum of Arts, Phillips Gallery and Embassy Concert Series in Washington D.C., Spoletto Festival in Charleston, SC, Concert Series of Plano Symphony and Laredo Symphony Orchestras, as well as Concert Halls in Calgary, Canada and Wu-hang, Sheng-Yang in China among others. They were invited to appear in the ‘Outstanding Chinese Musicians’ Series in the National Concert Hall of Taipei, Taiwan. And subsequently they were invited to play throughout Taiwan in April 2005.
Beatrice and Christina Long have enjoyed distinguished solo careers as well. A top-prize winner of several international competitions which include Cleveland International Piano Competition, Beatrice has played to critical acclaim in Central America, south east Asia, France, Belgium, Switzerland and in the United States. She has given recitals in Ravinia and Fontainebleau Festivals, and was invited as a guest soloist with the Baltimore Symphony, Orquesta Sinfonica del Estado de Mexico, National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, Taipei City Symphony and Civic Orchestra, Jura Symphony Orchestra of France, Laredo Philharmonic, New Amsterdam Orchestra of New York, and the Concert Series at the Presidential Palace in Taiwan. The American Record Guide described her Scriabin Mazurkas disc on Naxos as ‘impressive on many levels’. She was under the tutelage of Mieczyslaw Horszowski, Leon Fleisher, Fou Ts’ong and Enrique Graf at the Curtis Institute and Peabody Conservatory, where she graduated with honors.
Christina has served as the Artist-in-Residence in Southeast State Oklahoma University, an Assistant Professor of Piano at Westfield State College in Massachusetts, and Tabor College in Kansas. Most recently she made debut in Dallas’ Meyerson Hall as soloist with the Asian American Youth Orchestra, and played recitals with Dallas Chamber Orchestra. Her awards include the First Prize from the Kingsville International Young Performer’s Competition and Sherman Symphony Orchestra Soloist Competition. Christina has performed as a recitalist and chamber musician in the US, Taiwan, and Poland where her performances were described as having “unusual elasticity, colors, rhythmic clarity and creative fantasies’. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree form the University of North Texas, where she received the Dissertation Award for Excellence in Musical Performance. Her teachers include Adam Wodnicki, Vladimir Viardo, and Lillian Long. She has recorded for Centaur Records, and has been commissioned by the Ubiquitous Publishing Company to translate the book ‘My Life With Great Pianists’ by Franz Mohr.
