Matt Gianforte and Meeyoun Park will be thrilling music lovers this Sunday at the George T. Dennis Visual and Performing Arts Center on the SIC Campus. Their performance is scheduled from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m with an admittance fee of $10 for the public, but is free for all piano students.
“We both asked our parents for piano lesson when we were very young children,” Gianforte said about his musical connection to Park. “It has been a natural love of the instrument for us all our lives.”
Gianforte and Park met at Indiana University in 1999 when Gianforte went there to do his graduate work in music, Park was already there, pursuing her graduate work.
“We both had the same piano teacher there,” Gianforte said. “I have known since high school that music was going to be my career and Meeyoun is so naturally gifted that I can't imagine her doing anything else.”
Both Park and Gianforte are Assistant Professors of Music at Murray State University and two to three years ago, when Park came there to teach, the duo began performing together.
“We decide to combine our concert schedules, we have always worked really, really well together and it seemed like a natural thing to do,” Gianforte stated.
This Sundays performance will be broken into two parts. Half will showcase Park and Gianforte performing solo works alternately on the piano. The second half of the event will see them performing what is called “four hand” works on the same piano. This is two pianists performing together on the same piano.
“There is a great deal of music written for this type of performance,” Gianforte said.
Gianforte stated that though he has played the saxophone and the French horn, piano is his true love of musical instruments.
“Meeyoun is so gifted at the piano, though she is also a very, very good cook. I think we will both stay at the instruments for the rest of our lives,” Gianforte said. “Though Meeyoun is so good a cook that she has joked that if she ever quit the piano she would open a Korean restaurant.”
