LA GRANDE — The Blue Mountain District of the Oregon Music Teachers Association, in partnership with the Oregon Community Foundation and the Nellie Tholen Fund, will present two free lectures for pianists, piano teachers and all who would be interested on Saturday, Sept. 30, from 10 a.m. to noon and 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

The presentations will be held at the United Methodist Church, 1612 Fourth St in La Grande. No pre-registration, membership or fee is required.

The talks are presented by Dr. Michelle Huang and titled “Creating Beautiful Tone in Piano Playing” and “Playing What’s NOT on the Page – Cultivating Creativity.”

For more information, contact Dr. Matt Cooper, Blue Mountain District OMTA President, at 541-786-2052 or mcooperpiano@gmail.com.

About the programs

In “Creating Beautiful Tone,” Huang will discuss how to produce a singing tone on the piano through an understanding of the mechanics of the instrument, using specific examples from the piano repertoire.

In the second presentation, she will “explore how to look beyond the written notes and rhythms and create variety through variations in touch and dynamics and ‘attaching personalities, images and colors’ to musical passages,” according to a press release.

About Dr. Huang

A native of Taiwan, Huang is a graduate of the University of North Carolina, the University of Tennessee, and Florida State University where she holds the Doctor of Music degree in Piano Performance. She has taught and performed in the Czech Republic, Italy, Switzerland and Taiwan, as well as the United States.

She is a co-founder of the Online Young Pianist’s Summer Symposium, which was initiated during the pandemic and continues into 2023, and has served on the faculty of the East/West International Piano Symposium in Seoul, Korea as well as at Virginia Commonwealth University and several other colleges.