Constance Knox Carroll Recital is Final Concert of 2002-03 Friends of Music Concert Series on April 4

SHREVEPORT, LA —Centenary College’s Friends of Music Concert Series will present the final concert of the 2002-03 season on Friday, April 4 at 7:30 p.m. in the Anderson Auditorium of the Hurley School of Music. Pianist Constance Knox Carroll will play a solo recital as part of the festive weekend celebrating 150 Years of Music at Centenary.

The concert is partially underwritten by an Impact Project grant from Sigma Alpha Iota Philanthropies, Inc.

The program will contain Schubert’s Impromptu in b-flat major, three preludes by Debussy, Chopin’s A-flat major and f-minor Ballades, Haydn’s Sonata in B minor, the Op. 39 Waltzes by Brahms, and also Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Paganini.

Ticket prices are $10 for adults and $5 for students. Patrons may order tickets by calling the Hurley School of Music at 318-869-5235, or by purchasing them at the door to the concert. Admission is free, space permitting, to Centenary College faculty, staff and students with ID.

Ms. Carroll has received acclaim for her performances as a recitalist, a chamber musician, and as an orchestral soloist. She has elicited from the press such notices as "effortless grace … high intelligence (Baton Rouge); "received a veritable ovation (Chicago); "feeling for style and technical security" (Philadelphia); "a magnificent performance" (Vienna); and "always rendered with grand style and serenity" (Barcelona).

The featured artist at conventions of the state Music Teachers Associations of New York, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, Oklahoma, Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Mississippi and Louisiana, Ms. Carroll has also given lecture-recitals at the national MTNA conventions in Houston, Chicago, and most recently, in Kansas City. Equally adept as a teacher and lecturer, she numbers among her students winners of local and regional competitions, and has presented recitals, master classes and lectures at numerous universities and colleges throughout the country. Most recently, her student Qiao-Shuang Xian was the MTNA National Collegiate Artist winner (Nashville, 1998).

A native of Arizona, Ms. Carroll began piano study at age 5. She received her principal training from Julia Rebeil at the University of Arizona. Further study led her to the Eastman School of Music where she studied with José Echániz and won the coveted performers' certificate along with a Master of Music degree. Additional study during these years was with Frank Mannheimer (while she was a Fulbright student in Vienna, Austria), Rosina Lhevinne and Silvio Scionti. Ms. Carroll has won numerous awards and honors at national and international competitions, including the Naumburg Competition, the Young Artist Competition of the National Federation of Music Clubs, the Brevard Music Festival Young Artist Award and the Maria Canals International Competition for Piano in Barcelona, Spain.

Following study as a Fulbright scholar in Vienna and Salzburg, she was appointed to the music faculty at Louisiana State University. Subsequently, she taught at Wisconsin State University and Lenoir-Rhyne College, and was artist-in-residence at Centenary College of Louisiana for 21 years. She was reappointed to the faculty at Louisiana State University in 1995, and in 1996 was designated the Aloysia Landry Barineau Professor of Keyboard Studies.

In recent years, Ms. Carroll has been on the faculties of Brevard Music Center, the University of Houston high School Piano Camp, the Frank Mannheimer Piano Festival, the University of Kansas Piano Institute, and served as artist-juror at the New Orleans Institute for the Performing Arts. In March 2001, she was an adjudicator for the national finals of the NTMA Student Competitions in Washington, D.C.

In July 2002, Ms.Carroll was invited by Indiana University to give a recital and master class for the Summer Piano Academy.

In the spring of 2001, Carroll was honored with an Excellence in Teaching Award by LSU, and she recently was given the Outstanding Teacher of 2001 by LMTA. In the spring of 2002, she was honored at the MTNA national conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, by being designated an MTNA Foundation Fellow.

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