Reeds to celebrate milestone birthday with special concert Feb. 13
Kim Chaudoin |
Celebrating birthdays of loved ones often involves a special dinner at a favorite restaurant, a gathering of friends and family, or a wrapped gift of some sort.
But when Jerome Reed, celebrates the birthday of his wife, Kimberly, especially milestone birthdays, he gives a very personal gift using his musical talent — to fulfill her love of music — for a unique way to mark the occasion … with a concert.
It isn’t just any concert, however.
It is one planned by Jerome, Lipscomb’s Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Piano and internationally renowned pianist, featuring works of his wife’s favorite composers. He is also the featured artist along with a guest or two. And it is a gift that Kimberly, professor of English and French at Lipscomb, treasures.
This year Jerome is celebrating Kimberly’s 60th birthday by presenting a concert on Sunday, Feb. 13, at 2 p.m in Collins Alumni Auditorium. Joining Jerome will be one of his longtime musical colleagues and pianist, Elisabeth Pridonoff, artist-in-residence in Lipscomb’s School of Music for the past five years. Featured works include Brahms’ “Variations on a Theme by Haydn” for two pianos, Bach’s “Concerto in C Minor” for two pianos and orchestra and Mozart’s “Concerto in E-Flat Major” for two pianos and orchestra. Jerome and Pridonoff are the featured pianists and Carrie Bailey, former principal second violin of the Nashville Symphony and active session musician, will serve as concertmaster. The concert is free and open to the public.
The tradition of celebrating milestone birthdays with a concert performed by Jerome started in 2002 when he asked Kimberly what she wanted for her 40th birthday.
“She said, ‘I want you to play a concert and I get to choose the music and the performers,’” he explained. “And so I did, and the tradition began.”
Kimberly has a special fondness for the piano, which makes these birthday celebrations particularly meaningful.
“The day came, while I was in college, when I had to tell my piano teacher that after 14 years of piano, I was changing my majors from English and piano to English and French,” recalled Kimberly. “She was rather upset, so I assured her that I would never stop playing. When that didn’t seem to be enough, I said that I would even marry a pianist. A few years later, I met a pianist and married him!”
For the first birthday concert in 2002, Jerome played trios by Beethoven and Brahms with Bailey, violin, and David Vanderkooi, cello. Ten years later, on Feb. 13, 2012, for Kimberly’s 50th birthday, Jerome enlisted the Vega Quartet, quartet-in-residence at Emory University, to be on the program and he played the Brahms “F minor Piano Quintet” with them.
“The fire alarm went off in McFarland five minutes before we were to begin, so we had to move the concert quickly to Arnold Rehearsal Hall,” he recalled.
For her 60th birthday concert, Kimberly asked for Jerome and Pridonoff to play a concert for two pianos and orchestra.
“Elisabeth is professor emerita at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and she and I have been friends since high school,” said Jerome. “It is always a pleasure and honor to perform with her. This will be the first time we have performed together since our last concert on Feb. 22, 2020, just prior to the pandemic. I am really looking forward to this concert and to honoring Kim’s special birthday request.”
She said, ‘I want you to play a concert and I get to choose the music and the performers.' And so I did, and the tradition began. — Jerome Reed
This year, the concert also celebrates another milestone occasion — the 40th anniversary of the parents-in-law of Reeds’ daughter, Olivia.
Elisabeth Pridonoff
As artist-in-residence in Lipscomb’s School of Music, Pridonoff teaches all the piano majors for a week in the fall, and then comes two different times for a week each in the spring. Pridonoff is internationally known as a pianist and pedagogue and for over three decades was on the faculty of the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, where today she is an emeritus professor of piano. Her students have won many prestigious awards and hold positions at institutions all over the world. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School where she earned Master of Music degrees in piano with Adele Marcus and Sasha Gorodnitzski and in voice with Hans Heinz and Anna Kaskas. She has been the first-place winner of national and international competitions including the Midland-Odessa, Shreveport, El Paso and Oklahoma City Symphony.
As a soloist, Pridnoff has performed with the Nashville Symphony, the Oklahoma City Symphony, the Shreveport Symphony, the El Paso Symphony, the Cincinnati Chamber, the Boise Philharmonic, the Illinois Philharmonic, and Graz Festival. Furthermore, she has given performances and master classes all over the world. In the United States, this includes New York and Boston (Baltic Series), Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, Kennedy Center, Baltimore, Toronto Town Hall, and other locations; internationally, this includes the Moscow Conservatory, Siena, Rome (by invitation from the U.S. Ambassador), Munich, London, Monterrey (Mexico) at the Sociedad Artistica Technologicao and the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Monterrey, and other locations in Canada, Italy, Spain, Belgium, China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan.
Carrie Bailey
Bailey has served as concertmaster of the Canton (Ohio) Symphony, Wheeling (West Virginia) Symphony and the Gateway Chamber Orchestra. She has also performed with the North Carolina Symphony, the Jacksonville Symphony, the Ohio Chamber Orchestra, the Akron Symphony and the Spoleto Festival (in Charleston and Italy). She has appeared as soloist with the Nashville, Canton and Westerville (Ohio) Symphonies. Bailey holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in violin performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music. Her teachers include Linda and David Cerone, Paul Statsky, Bernhard Goldschsmidt and Stephen Majeske. In addition to her former work with the Nashville Symphony, Carolyn teaches privately and is an active studio musician. Some of her recording credits include Amy Grant, Vince Gill, Lady Antebellum, Faith Hill, Garth Brooks and Michael W. Smith.
Jerome Reed
A member of the inaugural class of the Steinway & Sons Teacher Hall of Fame, Reed joined the faculty at Lipscomb in fall 1983. Today, he is the Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Piano at Lipscomb University. Since that time, in addition to teaching untold numbers of piano students, Reed has performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and South America, appearing in such venues as the Mendelssohnhaus in Leipzig, Germany; the Musikhochschule in Graz, Austria; and the Conservatoire Royale in Brussels, Belgium. Other appearances have included recitals and masterclasses in Taiwan, Japan, France, Italy, England, Hungary and Uruguay. In the summer of 2014 he performed at Steinway Hall in New York. Reed is the director of the music division of the Governor's School for the Arts. He has recorded works for piano and tape for Capstone Records and in 2009 released a recording of sonatas for flute and piano with Deanna Little. In August of 2014 Navona Records (a division of Parma Recordings) released his recording of Elizabeth Austin’s Rose Sonata. He has given over 50 performances in the U.S. and abroad of Charles Ives’s Concord Sonata, which incorporate a multimedia presentation and readings from Ives's writings. In 2003 he was awarded the Avalon Award for Creative Excellence, in 2006 he received the Distinguished Service Award from the Tennessee Music Teachers Association, and in 2010 he was named Teacher of the Year by the same organization.
For more information about the School of Music, visit www.lipscomb.edu/music.