Your events at Classical Events
Details
1901 Arts Club
7 Exton Street
Waterloo
London
SE1 8UE
England
Programme
Franz Liszt – Totentanz, S.126
Roland Dyens – Libra Sonatine
The Beatles – Eleanor Rigby
Ferdinando Carulli – Gran Duo Op.86 for piano and guitar
Luigi Boccherini – Intro & Fandango
Performers
Tamara McCoy – piano
Valerie Hartzell – classical guitar
Programme Note
Dr. Tamara McCoy began her piano studies at the age of five in her home town of Anchorage, Alaska. She is a prize winner in several piano competitions, including the Alaska Yamaha State Piano Competition, Bartok-Kabalevsky-Prokofiev International Piano Competition and, most recently, the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition. Tamara has also won several prizes for composition, including first prize in the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra Composition Competition for her Intermezzo for Piano and Orchestra, which she later performed with the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra.
Tamara attended the University of Alaska Anchorage for her first year of college, in which she received a full scholarship for outstanding performance. She received her Bachelors degree in Piano Performance at Radford University as well as the MTNA STAR award for outstanding teaching ability. Tamara obtained her Masters and Doctoral degrees in Piano Performance at the University of Kentucky. She taught for three years at the University of Kentucky while acting as Head of Faculty at the Music Institute of Lexington. Tamara also served as Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Pikeville, where she was voted KMEA District 9 College/University Teacher of the Year for 2008. She has studied and performed internationally in Russia, the Czech Republic, and Brazil. Tamara was invited to teach and perform at the Annual International Piano Festival of the City of Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil in the summers of 2009 and 2010. In 2015, Tamara was awarded an Individual Artist Award from the Rasmuson Foundation to perform in Alaska and England.
Currently, Tamara teaches piano and voice at Alaska Pacific University, serves as Music Director at the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, and locally serves as a piano soloist and vocal and instrumental accompanist. Tamara has sung with the Anchorage Concert Chorus, the Anchorage Opera Chorus and currently sings with The Starling Sisters and Bel Canto Alaska. She lives in Anchorage with her husband Eric and their two toddlers, Kenny and Molly.
Valerie Hartzell began her classical guitar studies on a half-size Ramirez at the age of three. At the age of six, she studied with maestro Alexandre Lagoya at the Académie Internationale d’Eté in Nice, France.
She has performed in Europe, Canada, the U.S. and has appeared on television in Nice, FR and Houston, TX. She has also been featured on National Public Radio in Texas and Alaska, the show “Women in Music” which is broadcast on CKWR, 98.5 FM Canada, and on the Iain Lee Show on the BBC Three Counties Radio in the UK. She has performed in over 30 festivals, including East Carolina University Competition and Festival in Greenville, NC, the 2010 ChamberArt Music Festival in Madrid, Spain, the Pennsylvania Academy of Music Festival where she shared the stage with Eliot Fisk, Guitaromania in Agen, France, and at the Menil Community Arts Festival Performance at the Rothko Chapel in Houston.
Hartzell has been featured as a guest soloist for the New York City Classical Guitar Society, Arizona State University, University of Texas at Dallas, Svenska Margaretakyrkan in Oslo, Norway, University of Alaska at Anchorage, Peck School of the Arts (University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin), the Grand Canyon Guitar Society, through the Performing Arts Society of Kenai, Alaska and at the SAE Institute in Oxford, UK sponsored by the Oxford Guitar Society. Valerie has also collaborated with the Houston Grand Opera at the Rienzi Recital Series, the Kingwood Pops Orchestra and with the Houston Chamber Choir.
She is a prizewinner in 8 international competitions including 1st prizes at the 10th International Guitar Competition “Simone Salmaso” in Italy and at the Concours de Guitare Classique Heitor Villa-Lobos in France. Ms. Hartzell has a Bachelor’s Degree from Peabody Conservatory where she studied with Manuel Barrueco on scholarship and a Master’s Degree from Radford University where she was awarded a Graduate Teaching Fellowship. She has two recordings; Ex Tenebris...Lux, a solo project and Presti, an ensemble project, which were both recorded at the National Public Radio studios in Houston.
