Bandy said the songs will be tender and meaningful such as Blackbird which was written by Paul McCartney after civil rights workers were killed in the 1960s in the southern United States. Eight songs will be played throughout the service. The songs, Yesterday and Let it Be will be sung as prayers. Other songs include Hey Jude and Nowhere Man.

The Department of Music at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University will present a concert by the John Edwards Jazz Trio at the NMMU South Campus Auditorium tomorrow at 7.30pm. The musicians involved in this recently formed ensemble are accomplished and renowned South African jazz performers and are actively involved in music education in the Eastern Cape.

Pianist Leon Fleisher's recovery from a neurological disorder has been compared to cyclist's Lance Armstrong's triumph over cancer.   Both overcame extreme physical odds to tremendous acclaim and success.   Fleisher will perform Saturday at the Ames City Auditorium.   Forging ahead with music, despite a diagnosis of right hand focal dystonia, was the key to his achievement.   "Make sure that everything that you do is concentrated and purposeful," Fleisher, 81, said during a phone interview from his home in Baltimore.

What: George Winston

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday, doors open 7 p.m.

Where: Tower Theatre, 835 N.W. Wall St., Bend

Cost: $29 advance, $35 at the door, available through the Tower box office from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, or at the contact info below.

Pianist Art Tatum was once described as "the greatest soloist in jazz history, regardless of instrument."   He passed away at age 47 in 1956, cutting short his legendary career.   Now, imagine being able to collaborate with Tatum today - to have him as the front man for your big band in new arrangements and recordings.   This was the dream of band¨leader Gordon Goodwin, realized in an arrangement with his big band in their album, Act Your Age.

Beginning in summer 2010, Oberlin will join with the Cleveland Orchestra to offer an important new international competition for young musicians that will feature more than $20,000 in prize money and a performance with the orchestra.

The classical megastar, Lang Lang, and iconic jazz pianist, Herbie Hancock, will pair up in concert for an inaugural world tour this summer.   Following their highly successful 2008 Grammy highlight performance of "Rhapsody in Blue," it seemed only natural that the pair would bring their unique backgrounds to an even greater collaboration on the world stage.   The two pianists kick of this unprecedented tour at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland on July 5th and will play in France, Germany, the Netherlands, England, Italy and across the US.   Gracing prestigious venues across the globe, including the famed Royal Albert Hall, London and the spectacular Arena di Verona, Italy, the tour will culminate at the world-famous Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on August 7th and 8th.

Buffalo native Christopher Ziemba is an amazing young pianist and composer. His mature voice and articulate manner belies the fact that he's only just recently completed his senior recital at the Eastman School of Music. At the urging of his teacher, pianist Harold Danko, Ziemba sent a CD of that recital to Marian McPartland. She was immediately taken with the young player, and invited him to be a guest on Piano Jazz.

Chopin for All series of free concerts presents piano recital by sensational Julia Kociuban, 17 - year old Winner of the 2008 National Chopin Competition of Poland - Saturday, April 25, 2009 at 7:00 PM Broward County Main Library, 100 S. Andrews Ave, Ft. Lauderdale

Ten pianists will perform together on five grand pianos in "The Keys for the Cure: Five Grands and Twenty Hands" concert at 7:30 p.m. May 8 at Wesley United Methodist Church on St. Simons Island. Two musicians will be seated at each of the five pianos to perform works written exclusively for "one piano, four hands.'' The concert will be two weeks after the annual Relay for Life benefit for the American Cancer Society. The proceeds of the concert will also go to the American Cancer Society. Five of the performers are cancer survivors and the five others have been touched in some way by the disease.

In the classical sphere prominent performers are usually more decorous about pilfering from the musical storage cabinet. But the pianist Christopher O'Riley has no such inhibitions. On Friday at the Miller Theater Mr. O'Riley will perform his own creative transcriptions of Radiohead songs alongside Shostakovich preludes and fugues in the first of a three-part series called 2 + 2 = 5 (also the name of a Radiohead song). Later Mr. O'Riley will play music by singer-songwriters whom he admires alongside works by classical composers, pairing Nick Drake with Debussy on April 17 and Elliott Smith with Schumann on May 1.

Union County Performing Arts Center presents the Piano Masters Series inaugural event, featuring a rare solo performance by Chuchito Valdes, on March 20 at 8 p.m. Terrance McKnight, WNYC Radio's host of Evening Music, the station's nightly classical music program, will guest host the event.

The Lone Star Kitchen has been sold, and its new owners are converting it into a restaurant and bar that will feature a stage with dueling pianos. Live music isn't expected to start until next month, but until then, work will continue on a business called the Red Bike Dueling Piano Bar & Restaurant, general manager Kyle Murphy said Wednesday.

The Kellogg Community College Lifelong Learning Department is offering two piano courses, titled "Instant Piano (For Hopelessly Busy People)" and "How to Play Piano by Ear" on Saturday, March 21, 2009. "Instant Piano (For Hopelessly Busy People)" is from 9 am to 12:30 pm, and "How to Play Piano by Ear" is from 2 to 5:30 pm. Each takes place at KCC's Regional Manufacturing Technology Center located at 405 Hill-Brady Road in Battle Creek.

The Sheldon Gala 2009 welcomes singer and actress Bebe Neuwirth "Stories with Piano," Saturday, March 28, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. in the perfect acoustics of the Sheldon Concert Hall. This very special evening, co-chaired by Sharon and Dale Fiehler and Jerrilyn and David Hoffmann, benefits The Sheldon's 2008-2009 season of concerts, exhibits and educational programs.

Performers will include Reid Blickenstaff, violin; Mary Foster Grant, piano; Carmen Gorak, viola; Peter Gorak, violin and viola; Karina Gordievich, piano; Marilyn Karr, piano; Julie Mandery, piano; Janice Parker-Peterson, piano; Joanna Robertson, cello; Michelle Smith, piano; and Sharon Stricklin, piano.

Since then his career continually spiraled upward as he won prizes in Canada, Japan, Spain, Italy and Dublin, as well as being one of six finalists in the prestigious Van Cliburn International Competition in 2005. He performs all over Europe and North America, a schedule that finds him flying across the Atlantic Ocean many times a year.

The Elks Theatre and Black Hills Piano Gallery are collaborating for a Saturday, Feb. 28 benefit for the Red Cross. Pianist Brandon Sterling will play Sir Elton John's red piano for the 7 p.m. concert. Visit www.elkstheatre.com for ticket information.

The last time anyone heard Felix Mendelssohn's Fantasy and Variations for Two Pianos and Orchestra on the Gypsy March from Weber's 'Preziosa' was in London, on May the second, 1833. It is one of the more than 200 pieces composed by Mendelssohn that was never published and then disappeared.

He began studying classical piano at the age of 4. Within 10 years he'd earned a teaching degree. And at 15, Ziegler kicked off his professional career. In a Dixieland jazz band. He'd fallen ≈\ hard ≈\ for jazz. The feisty, graceful riffs of Duke Ellington, King Oliver, and Jelly Roll Morton kept him busy. But the tango of his father's era was nowhere in Ziegler's plans. His love for jazz textures and, especially, improvisation did not fit in that world. The performance will be Saturday, February 21, at 8 p.m.

NOVA presents Piano Quartets by Beethoven and Schumann with Mahler's rarely performed single movement work. University of Utah pianist Heather Conner is joined by Utah Symphony colleagues. 3:00 p.m. Sunday, February 15, 2009; Utah Museum of Fine Art, 410 Campus Center Drive, Salt Lake City.

The chamber concert for violin and piano, called From Beethoven to the Movies, which starts at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 21, will start with Mozart's Sonata in G Major and Brahms' Sonata No. 1 in G-Major and finish with Meditation in D-minor by Tchaikovsky, Prelude in D-major and Prelude in C#-minor by Rachmaninov.

On Saturday, April 4, at 8 p.m., I will perform "San Angelo's Favorite Music" in a solo piano recital as part of the 5th San Angelo Piano Festival. How do I know what San Angelo's Favorite Music is? Simple - you have to request it! Up until March 7, I will accept requests at my Web site (pianomike.com) using an online form. After March 7, I will have less than a month to learn and finalize the program to perform at the newly renovated Eldon Black Recital Hall at Angelo State University.

Master pianists Dina Vainshtein and Leon Livshin will join forces again for "Piano Affairs," a four-hand piano concert in the Resonance Concert Series, at 7 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 22, at the United Methodist Church in Madison, 24 Madison Ave. Last year's concert was so successful that the duo will perform a return engagement to brighten up the icy winter. The program will includes selections from Brahms' "Waltzes," Dvorak's "Legends" and Debussy's "Petite Suite."

Pianists William Chapman Nyaho and Susanna Garcia, performing as the Nyaho-Garcia Duo, will play some of those arrangements at an HCAA concert at 2:30 p.m. Feb. 8 at the First Southern Baptist Church of Hemet.

The Music Department at Corban College & Graduate School presents piano performance major, Karen Wright, in her senior recital at 7:30 p.m. on February 13, 2009.

The Gulldalen Lodge of Sons of Norway is sponsoring a piano recital by Knut Erik Jensen, a Trondheim, Norway native. The event, taking place at 7 p.m. on Friday at Peace Lutheran Church, Grass Valley.

What made it special? "There is nothing special about the Horowitz piano!" writes piano technician Franz Mohr, who was Horowitz's piano tuner for 25 years, from 1962 until Horowitz's death. "It hadn't been differently regulated; it doesn't work any differently than any other Steinway."

Promoters say the pop singer will close his Las Vegas Strip show, "The Red Piano," on April 22

The Lukens Piano Trio will perform a program of romantic music at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 8. Their program will contain music by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich.

Deuces Wild will perform at 9 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 5, in O'Shaughnessy Educational Center auditorium.

The Monroe County Library System's annual Black History Month Blues Series gets into high gear tomorrow when four stars of the keyboard come together for the first time for "The Big Piano Gig" at 7 p.m.in Monroe Community College's Meyer Theater, 1555 South Raisinville Rd., Monroe.

Douglas, who arrives at Benaroya Hall on Thursday to solo with the Seattle Symphony, has been doing plenty of practicing on his own: He is booked to play the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1, one of the huge-scale romantic-era finger-busters with which he has made at least part of his reputation.

Nikolai Lugansky will perform February 5th, 6th, and 7th.

Elton John and Billy Joel announced plans yesterday to present their North American tour, called "Face 2 Face," in Columbus during the summer. The piano-playing singer-songwriters, who have sold 350 million albums combined, will play their hits in a concert at 7:30 p.m. July 14 in Nationwide Arena, 200 W. Nationwide Blvd.

This piece was written for a friend of Ravel's who had lost his right arm in the first World War.

The piano bash or "monster concerts," date back to the 1800s with American composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk, who organized huge musical extravaganzas, with more than 1,000 musicians gathered together for the riotous occasion.

Mendelssohn, one of the most renowned musicians of the 19th century, was considered a child prodigy for his original work, and he devoted himself to the revival of Johann Sebastian Bach's music, said Cynthia Miller, a special projects librarian at Amelia Gorgas Library and producer of the event.