The Virginia Tech Department of Music presents guest pianist Lise Keiter-Brotzman in "A Tribute to Women Composers" on Wednesday, March 19 at 8 p.m., in the Squires Recital Salon located in the Squires Student Center on College Avneue adjacent to downtown Blacksburg.

The program of solo piano music written exclusively by women composers will be presented with support from the Women’s Center and the Women and Minority Artists and Scholars Lecture Series at Virginia Tech. The program will serve as a benefit concert for the Women’s Resource Center of the New River Valley. Donations will be accepted at the door for the Women’s Resource Center. A reception will follow the concert in the student center’s Williamsburg Room.

Keiter-Brotzman will visit Virginia Tech for a two-day residency, with support from the Department of Music and the Women and Minority Artists and Scholars Lecture Series. In addition to the Wednesday night solo recital, Keiter-Brotzman will present a lecture-recital on Tuesday, March 18, at 2 p.m., and a master class on March 18 at 7 p.m.; both events are free and open to the public.

Keiter-Brotzman has performed nation-wide and is active as a solo recitalist, collaborative artist, and soloist with orchestra. She is currently the music department chair at Mary Baldwin College, a women’s college in Staunton, Va. Her work at Mary Baldwin led her to develop an interest in the music of women composers, and in 2005, she developed an all-women composers program of solo piano works, in honor of the bicentenary year of pianist and composer Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-1847). This highly popular recital has become her most-requested program, and she has performed it over a dozen times to date. Other composers featured in the program include Maria Hester Park, Amy Beach, Clara Schumann, and Madeleine Dring.

The Women’s Resource Center of the New River Valley, a non-profit, human service organization, has been providing hope and help to victims of domestic and sexual violence for 30 years. The oldest in Virginia, it provides programs and services free-of-charge to both children and adults in Radford and Floyd; Giles; Montgomery; and Pulaski counties, and at New River Valley Community College, Radford University, and Virginia Tech campuses to create a community free of domestic violence and sexual assault through services, support, and education. During fiscal year 2007, the Women’s Resource Center provided 11,697 nights of shelter to children and adults, and reached 18,847 people with educational and outreach presentations about violence. With a 3 percent overall increase in clients last year, the Women’s Resource Center continues to provide services to those in need of assistance with domestic and sexual violence situations.

The Department of Music at Virginia Tech provides professional music training to select music students and enhances the cultural life of the university, region, and the Commonwealth through teaching, professional service, artistic performance, creativity, and research. The Department of Music, located in the School of the Arts within the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, also provides high-quality training to a wide variety of ensembles and courses for large numbers of non-music majors.

For more information about “A Tribute to Women Composers,” contact Tracy Cowden at (540) 231-5386 or tcowden@vt.edu.

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