Oct. 29, 2014
For Immediate Release
By Kasey Ricketts, student news writer
CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. – Award winning and world traveling pianist Stephen Beus, who teaches at the University of Oklahoma and who is a Steinway Artist, will be performing the Kentucky Music Teachers Association Conference Artist Concert at 8 p.m. Monday, Nov. 3 in Ransdell Chapel at 401 N. Hoskins Ave., Campbellsville.
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His concert is co-sponsored by the Central Kentucky Arts Series.
Everyone is invited to attend free of charge.
Beus was raised on a farm in eastern Washington and began taking piano lessons at the age of 5. He had his first orchestral debut four years later at the age of 8.
From there he went on to win national and international competitions throughout his youth.
The Fanfare magazine wrote about Beus’ talents stating, “Beus doesn’t fit the mold of the typical competition winner. His playing is strikingly original. His playing is so natural as to seem effortless and the sound he produces has extraordinary richness and depth, not quite like anyone else’s.”
Within four months, he won multiply awards including: first prize in the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, first place in the Vendome Prize International Competition in Lisbon and awarded the Max I. Allen Fellowship of the American Pianists Association in Indianapolis.
As a result of winning the Julliard School Concerto Competition, he made his Carnegie Hall debut with the Juilliard Orchestra and James DePreist, playing Prokofiev Concerto No. 3.
He has also performed as guest soloist with the Gulbenkian Symphony (Lisbon), Oxford Philomusica, the Tivoli Symphony (Copenhagen), the Tbilisi National Opera Orchestra, the Northwest Sinfonietta (Seattle), the Royal Philharmonic of Morocco (Casablanca), the Vaasa Symphony (Finland) as well as with the Hamburg, Indianapolis, Nashville, Santa Fe, Utah, Fort Worth, Tucson, Yakima, Bellevue, Salt Lake, Eastern Sierra, Corvallis, Jacksonville, Texarkana and Walla Walla Symphonies.
He has given recitals across the United States as well as in Kazakhstan, Russia, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Georgia, China, France, Italy, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Morocco.
Beus holds degrees from Whitman College, The Juilliard School and Stony Brook University where his teachers have included Leonard Richter, Robert McDonald, Gilbert Kalish and Christina Dahl. He has recorded on the Endeavor Classics and Harmonia Mundi labels.
The Central Kentucky Music Teachers Association of which Judith Davis, an adjunct instructor at CU is president, will hold a reception following the concert.
Campbellsville University is a widely acclaimed Kentucky-based Christian university with more than 3,500 students offering 63 undergraduate options, 17 master’s degrees, five postgraduate areas and eight pre-professional programs. The website for complete information is campbellsvillee.edu.