Renowned pianist Willis Delony to perform at Southeastern Sept. 29
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
by: Rene Abadie
HAMMOND – Willis Delony, considered one of the nation's leading classical/jazz crossover artists, will perform a recital at Southeastern Louisiana University on Monday, Sept. 29, at 7:30 p.m.
Sponsored by the Department of Fine and Performing Arts, the concert – entitled "Out of Character – Classical and Jazz Connections," is free and open to the public.
Delony will perform a wide range of selections by composers, including classical pieces by Chopin and jazz pieces by the late Bill Evans, a seven-time Grammy Award winning musician who earned his degrees in music from Southeastern. He will also perform some of his own work.
In a career spanning three decades, Delony has appeared as piano soloist, guest pianist, arranger or conductor with more than 20 American orchestras. He has also performed with international orchestras including the Toronto Symphony, the Edmonton Symphony, the National Orchestra of Moldova and the Shanghai Symphony. He has performed classical and jazz concerts throughout the nation as well as in France, Germany, Mexico and Brazil.
Delony is the Virginia Martin Howard Professor of Piano and Jazz Studies at LSU, where he serves as co-host and pianist for the university's popular concert series "Hot Summer Nights – Cool Jazz." He has been a member of the LSU music faculty since 2000. Previously he served on the music faculty at Southeastern.
A recipient of an Artist Fellowship from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, he has been honored with the Edith Kirkpatrick Arts Leadership Award given by the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra.
