Japanese Pianist Opens WFU’s Secrest Artist Series
Wake Forest University’s 1998-99 Secrest Artists Series will open Friday, Sept. 18, with Chitose Okashiro, a Japanese-born pianist who has recently received accolades for her recordings of music by the Russian composer Scriabin.
Okashiro will perform at 8 p.m. in Brendle Recital Hall. Her program will include Mozart’s “Sonata in B-flat Major,” preludes by Claude Debussy and etudes by Scriabin. She will conclude the program with symphonic etudes by Robert Schumann.
The New York Times described Okashiro as “an appealing colorist,” while a reviewer from the American Record Guide wrote, “I’m still innocent enough to sit in open-mouthed awe at something like Chitose Okashiro’s consummate technical mastery.”
A graduate of The Juilliard School and The Manhattan School of Music, Okashiro records exclusively for Pro Piano Records. She is currently at work on her sixth release, which features piano transcriptions of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” and two other operas.
Okashiro was the 1993 Pro Piano Artist of the Year and a major prize-winner at the 1993 International Chopin Competition. She is known for her excellence as a recording artist, a performer and a record producer.
Tickets for the concert are $17.50 for adults, $12.50 for students and senior citizens. They will be available through the University Theater box office at 758-5295 beginning Sept. 8. The box office is open weekdays from noon-5:30 p.m. Season tickets ($75) are also on sale and include the five other Secrest events: Hesperion XX, The Doc Severinsen Big Band, the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Berlin, the Muir String Quartet with clarinetist David Shifrin, and actress Claire Bloom’s “Portraits of Shakespeare’s Women.”
For information, call the Secrest office at 336-758-5757.
Categories: Arts & Culture, Happening at Wake
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