MTSU will welcome award-winning pianist Read Gainsford to perform in the 2007-2008 Presidential Concert Series at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb.12, in the T. Earl Hinton Music Hall of the Wright Music Building on the MTSU campus.

“We are pleased to have this multi-prize-winning artist performing for the public and working with our students before becoming a household name,” said Dr. George Riorden, director, MTSU School of Music.

“The perfect combination of head, heart and hands” is how one described Gainsford’s first U.S. concert tour. He has earned critical and public acclaim in four continents, and has received high praise for music ranging from Mozart to Messiaen, from performances on period instruments to that of Rachmaninoff.

Currently an associate professor of piano at Florida State University, this native New Zealander received the top prize in the Television New Zealand Young Musician of the Year placed in the Advanced Solo Studies course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he graduated with the prestigious Concert Recital Diploma.

Gainsford has performed widely in the U.S., Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa as solo recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber musician. He has made successful solo debuts at the Wigmore Hall and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and has performed in many other venues, including the John F. Kennedy Center, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Barbican Centre and Fairfield Halls, to name a few. He has recorded for the Amoris label, BBC Radio Three, Radio New Zealand’s Concert Programme and has been broadcast on national television in New Zealand, the U.K. and Yugoslavia.

“From the level of his artistry we know he is going to be an artist much in demand in the very near future,” Riorden said.  “This will give the middle Tennessee public a chance to claim him before becoming famous.”

The Presidential Concert Series will continue on March 14, with the Aulos Ensemble, a New York-based period instrument group.

“They will be performing an exciting program of music from Venice and Versailles,” Riorden said. “You will not want to miss it.”

All performances in the Presidential Concert Series are free and open to the public. For more information on this and other events in the MTSU School of Music, visit www.mtsumusic.com or call 615-898-2493.