Vanderbilt Faculty Members to Perform This Sunday at Steinway Society

Two Vanderbilt University faculty members will perform this Sunday, October 29th, at Nashville’s Steinway Piano Gallery Recital Hall at 3:00 p.m. Admission is free but seating is limited, so those wishing to attend should call the Steinway Piano Gallery at 615-373-5901 by 5:00 p.m. Friday, October 27th to reserve a seat.

The Steinway Gallery is located at 4285 Sidco Drive.

The piano program will feature the 1st movement, Maestoso, of the BrahmsConcerto No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 15, and Mussorgsky’sPictures at an Exhibition. The solo piano part will be played by Steinway Artist Marilyn Shields-Wiltsie, with Steve Hyman, M.D. playing the orchestral part on a second piano.  

Shields-Wiltsie taught for many years at Blair School of Music. She holds the Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Peabody College and also studied with Leon Fleisher. Her professional achievements in subsequent years have included concert tours in Russia, Germany, Switzerland, France, Armenia, and Mexico. In 1990 she received an invitation from the Tchaikovsky Competition Committee to return to Moscow as its guest for the competition. In 1992 she was designated a Steinway Artist. 

Many of her concerts of recent years have featured the music of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt and have been performed under the auspices of Wagner Societies. She has been featured in solo recital at Villa Wahnfried, the Richard Wagner Museum in Bayreuth, Germany, on Wagner's own 1876 Steinway, during the 2000 Bayreuth Festival.

Dr. Steve Hyman is a former student of Shields-Wiltsie and the two have performed together many times. Dr. Hyman is medical director of Vanderbilt’s Medical Center East operating rooms and an associate professor at the medical school. After more than two decades as a physician, Hyman enrolled as a piano student at Belmont University and received his master’s degree in piano performance in 2004.

A brief pre-performance discussion of the program will be led by Ted Wiltsie, who holds a doctorate from Vanderbilt.  He is Conductor and Artistic Director of the Delta Symphony Orchestra in Greenville, Mississippi. As an opera critic, his reviews appear in such publications as theWagner News of the American Wagner Society,Wagner Notes of the Wagner Society of New York, andOpera News published by the Metropolitan Opera Guild.  He was Director of the United States Air Force "Singing Sergeants" of the USAF Band, Washington, D.C., and conducted the USAF Symphony Orchestra.