Annual Piano Festival to Occur Feb. 16-17

The 41st annual Truman Piano Festival will take place Feb. 16-17 in the Ophelia Parrish Performance Hall.

This year’s featured guest artist is Dr. Slawomir Dobrzanski, professor of piano at Kansas State University. At 7:30 p.m. Feb. 16, he will perform a solo recital featuring works by Beethoven, Szymanowska, Chopin, Schonberg and Prokofiev. At 9:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Feb. 17, he will conduct a master class featuring Truman piano majors. All events are free and open to the public.

As a soloist and chamber musician, Dobrzanski often performs in Asia, Europe, South America and throughout the United States and Canada. Under the London-based Acte Prealable label, Dobrzanski has released several critically acclaimed CD albums of previously unknown piano repertoire by Maria Szymanowska (complete piano music), Anton de Kontski, Wiktor Labunski (complete piano music) and Károly Aggházy. He has also recorded solo and chamber music for Polish radio and television in Warsaw.

Dobrzanski is a graduate of the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, Poland, and the University of Connecticut. In 1993, he won the Naftzger Young Artist Award and was the Naftzger Piano Division Winner. Dobrzanski joined the Kansas State University music faculty in 2005. Prior to his appointment at Kansas State, he was a member of music faculties at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, and the University of Rhode Island.

Dobrzanski’s former piano students are currently pursuing artistic and academic careers all over the world, across North and South America, Africa, Europe and Asia. Many have become highly successful soloists and chamber musicians, often while serving simultaneously on the music faculties of colleges, music conservatories and community music schools. He is the recipient of the 2021 Outstanding Teacher Award from Kansas Music Teachers Association.