Pianist music professor Susanne Skyrm to perform Oct 8 recital
Skyrm spent a month in Alicante, Spain, studying the Spanish piano repertoire with the noted pedagogue and concert pianist, Albert Nieto. Tuesday’s program will include music that she studied with Nieto. Featured composers include Albeniz, Blancafort, Mompou and Turina, as well as 18th-century composers Albero, Scarlatti, Blasco de Nebra, and Soler. The program is free and open to the public. Skyrm will present the same program in Chadron, Neb., Wayne, Neb. and Spearfish, S.D. later this fall.
A piano soloist and collaborative artist, Skyrm has performed throughout the United States and Europe. She combines performing the standard piano repertoire with research interests in early keyboards and Spanish and Latin American keyboard music. Her performances have been broadcast nationally on public radio and on public access television. Her CD, “Treasures of Iberian Keyboard Music,” features a rare Portuguese fortepiano from the collections of The National Music Museum and was released to critical acclaim. Skyrm holds degrees in piano performance from the College of Idaho, the University of Cincinnati and the University of Colorado. She was a prize winner in the Mason and Hamlin Idaho state auditions and the regional auditions and the recipient of an award from the Cincinnati Three Arts Foundation. She also studied with master teacher Ilonka Deckers-Küszler in Milan, Italy, for several years. Other teachers include Fern Nolte Davidson, Larry Graham, and Ray Dudley, piano; Malcolm Bilson, fortepiano; and Bernard Brauchli, clavichord.
A member of the USD faculty since 1988, she teaches studio and class piano, and piano literature, and in 2006, she was named the first recipient of USD’s College of Fine Arts Biennial Distinguished Professor Award.