Steinway Spectacular

Keyboard studies are an integral part of the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, and our faculty boasts American and International award-winning performers and teachers that draw some of the best student-musicians to study at UGA. And each year one date in the 2nd Thursday Scholarship Concert Series is dedicated to the piano - and to the piano maker that supplies the Hodgson School with instruments:

More than 25 pianists will join forces for "Steinway Spectacular," March 21 at 8 p.m. in the Hodgson Concert Hall.

The musicians, drawn from the ranks of the Hodgson School's keyboard faculty and students, have selected a broad variety of compositions for the performance, including arrangements of pieces by J.S. Bach, Handel, Gershwin, Wagner and Beethoven as well as original works by Milhaud, Lutosławski, Dahl and Schubert. The concert will culminate in Albert Lavignac's "Galop-March" for four pianos—requiring 24 hands for 352 keys.

"It's a real rarity to see this many pianists onstage at once," said Richard Zimdars, Despy Karlas Professor of Piano at the Hodgson School and one of the evening's performers. "There are interesting logistics in play with multiple people at one piano—simply in terms of space—and half the fun of putting together a program like this is collaborating with others and figuring those aspects out."

The concert, which marks UGA's 10th year as an All-Steinway School, is a celebration of the school of music sharing in the tradition of great American company Steinway & Sons, Zimdars said.