Pianist, Educator to Perform in Recital Series

Eastman School Piano Department Chair Douglas Humpherys will make his first appearance at SUNY Buffalo State on Thursday, October 17, as part of the Lois Rowland Klein Piano Recital Series in a 7:30 p.m. performance in the Louis P. Ciminelli Recital Hall at Rockwell Hall. He also will present a master class for Buffalo State pianists on Wednesday, October 16, at 3:00 p.m. in the recital hall.

Humpherys’s concert career has spanned more than three decades across four continents. Along with serving as professor of piano, Humpherys is the director of the Eastman Young Artists International Piano Competition and Festival.

“The entire Music Department is excited to be hosting such a prominent artist and teacher,” said Emily Boyce, pianist and associate professor of music. “Dr. Humpherys’s students have won countless national and international competitions and routinely go on to significant careers as performers and educators.”

Prior to the performance, the Music Department will recognize Edward Klein for his ongoing gifts made in honor of his late wife, Lois Rowland Klein, a 1945 elementary education graduate who passed away in 2011. Klein and his wife began the recital series in 2007. With the opening of the Ciminelli Recital Hall in November 2012, Klein made another gift to the Music Department, and the lobby was named in his honor of his wife. Lois’s sister, Doris Peterson, also made a gift to the Music Department in honor of their mother, Edna Rosner Rowland. A teaching studio in the new recital hall was named in honored of Rosner Rowland. 

“The Rowland and Klein families have really been guardian angels to the Music Department, and we are enormously grateful,” said Brad Fuster, chair and associate professor of music.

Other performers in the Lois Rowland Klein Piano Recital Series have included Jennifer Hayghe, associate professor at Ithaca College’s School of Music; Cuban pianist and performer Orlay Alonso; and Polina Fedotova, professor of piano at Moscow State University and teacher at the Moscow Conservatory.

“Thanks to Mr. Klein’s continuing support, we have been able to bring in higher-profile artists each year since the inception of the Klein Recital in 2007,” Boyce said. “We continue to express our gratitude to Ed and his late wife, Lois.”

Tickets to the Humpherys performance are $10 and free for students. Order by phone (716) 878-3005 or online. Free admission tickets are only available in person at the Rockwell Hall Box Office with student ID.