By Gerard Flanagan, news writer and photographer, Office of University Communications
CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. – The New York Concert Review called him a “formidable and magnificent pianist,” while well-known pianist David Dubal described his 2013 debut solo album Russian Portraits as “piano playing that brings chills to the flesh, performed with a rare virtuoso technique.”
Internationally recognized pianist Dr. Wael Farouk will put his talent on display at Campbellsville University during a concert in The Gheens Recital Hall, 210 University Drive, Campbellsville, Ky., at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 8. The concert is free and open to the public.
Farouk’s performance is part of the festivities surrounding the inauguration of Dr. Joseph Hopkins as the 12thpresident of Campbellsville University.
Farouk, a member of the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music, has performed internationally in prestigious venues such as White Hall in St. Petersburg, Schumann’s House in Leipzig and Carnegie Hall in New York.
In the spring of 2021, Farouk gave a performance of Rachmaninoff’s concerti Nos. 1, 2 and 3 in a single evening with the New Philharmonic Orchestra and Conductor Kirk Muspratt. A Chicago Tribune music critic described the performance as a “history-making concert.”
Since 2014, Farouk has performed 30 different recital programs featuring the complete solo piano works of Rachmaninoff and Brahms, as well as Brahms’s complete piano chamber music.
According to his biography, Farouk “commands a vast repertoire of more than 70 concertos and 60 solo programs, spanning from Scarlatti to Bolcom and including the complete piano works of J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin and Rachmaninoff as well as the complete sonatas of Prokofiev, Scriabin, and Schubert.”
Farouk has appeared as a soloist with such orchestras as the North Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the Saint-Etienne National Orchestra, the Academy of the Arts Orchestra, the Manhattan Symphony and the Cairo Symphony Orchestra, led by Christoph Mueller, Steven Lloyd, Patrick Fournilier and Philippe Entremont, among others.
Farouk received his Bachelor of Music degree at the Cairo Conservatory as a student of Samir Aziz, Edgar Davelienadze and Vselod Demidov. He then came to the United States on a Fulbright Fellowship to study with Marilyn Neeley at the Catholic University of America.
Farouk received a Master of Music degree from Converse College as a student of Douglas Weeks, and he received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Rutgers University.
Campbellsville University is a widely acclaimed Kentucky-based Christian university that has enrolled up to 12,000 students yearly. The university offers over 100 programs of study including doctoral, masters, bachelors, associate and certification programs. The website for complete information is www.campbellsville.edu.