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Guest Artist, WILLIS DELONY

In a performing career spanning over four decades, pianist Willis Delony has won acclaim as a leading classical/jazz crossover artist. His innovative concert explorations of the two musical worlds are showcased in a series of solo piano recordings on the Centaur label. A New World A' Comin' – Classical and Jazz Connections was released in 2001. Double Dance – Classical and Jazz Connections II was released in 2008. Out of Character – Classical and Jazz Connections III, was released in October 2014. Also part of the series is an independent release from 2018 entitled Butterfly Room – Connections for Solo Piano. The project continues with Between the Notes, which was released by Centaur in 2021. Previous album credits include a recording of sonatas by Samuel Barber and Sergei Prokofiev, also on the Centaur label, and a jazz album entitled Civilized Conversations, featuring Delony and bassist Bill Grimes. He collaborated with bassoonist William Ludwig on the Mark Records release, Rhapsody in Bassoon, which features the world premiere recording of André Previn’s Sonata for Bassoon and Piano. He also appears with oboist Johanna Cox Pennington on her album Orion Nocturne on the Albany label. His most recent project is a double album with violinist Joana Genova featuring the Four Sonatas for Violin and Piano by Stephen Dankner, which was released by Centaur in April, 2024.

Delony has appeared as piano soloist, chamber musician, jazz performer, guest pianist/arranger/conductor with orchestras throughout the United States as well as orchestras in Canada, the former Soviet Union and China. As a solo and collaborative recitalist, he has performed classical and jazz concerts throughout the U.S. as well as France, Germany, the former Soviet Union, Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil and Argentina. His pops orchestra arrangements have been performed throughout the U.S. and Canada, including over 50 scores written for the Minneapolis-based jazz vocal quintet Five By Design, He collaborates regularly with leading contemporary composers, having premiered the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra by Stephen Dankner with the LSU Symphony Orchestra in 2015. He has recorded and performed solo piano works by Paris-based American composer Joseph Makholm, as well as solo piano works by jazz composer Les Hooper. In January 2017, he premiered Greg Yasinitsky’s Jazz Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra. Due in part to the strength of this performance, the work was awarded The American Prize in composition. A series of 2018 concerts in Paris, where he has long been a featured artist, included a lecture/recital on the music of Bill Evans at the IMEP Paris College of Music as well as a solo recital at the Bill Evans Piano Academy, the first ever such performance at that venue.

Delony is the Boyd Professor of Piano and Jazz Studies in the School of Music at Louisiana State University, where he has been a member of the music faculty since 2000. From 1986-2000 he served on the music faculty at Southeastern Louisiana University and is a former member of the music faculty at Delta State University. He is a past recipient of an Artist Fellowship awarded by the Louisiana Division of the Arts, as well as the Edith Kirkpatrick Arts Leadership Award given by the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra. He received the LSU Distinguished Faculty Award in 2019 and was named the SEC Professor of the Year for LSU in 2020.

Randall Faber, Guest Clinician

As pianist and educator, Randall Faber has appeared as special guest at universities throughout North America and Asia, including the Beijing Central Conservatory, the Shanghai Conservatory and the Royal Conservatory of Canada. He has been Convention Artist for the Music Teachers National Association Conference and master teacher for the World Conference on Piano Pedagogy, National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, the Australasian Piano Pedagogy Conference, the USA National Piano Teachers Institute, and the Online Global Piano Summit.

A Steinway Artist, Faber has given recitals throughout the United States, Canada and Asia. He has appeared on international television and on public radio in live recital broadcast.

Dr. Faber holds three degrees from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in Education and Human Development from Vanderbilt University. His research on motivation and talent development has been featured in journals and media in South Korea, China, Australia, and at the 9th International Conference on Motivation in Lisbon, Portugal.

Randall and his wife Nancy are well known as authors of the best-selling Piano Adventures ® teaching method. Translated into eleven languages, their books have reached millions of students around the world. In 2018, the Fabers received the MTNA-Frances Clark Piano Pedagogy Award for their contributions to the field of piano pedagogy. In 2019, Dr. Faber received the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award in Education from the Roland Corporation.

The Fabers are co-founders of the Faber Piano Institute.

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