Utah pianists ready to put their 'hands down'

With 300 pianists and 10 pianos, this year's Summer Arts Monster Concert at the University of Utah will truly be a spectacle.

Thankfully, all those people won't be squeezed onstage at once. Amber Gunter, president of the Summer Arts student association, said the performance will be made up of smaller ensembles that will perform individually.

"It's going to be really fast-paced," said Susan Duehlmeier, head of the University of Utah piano department and faculty advisor to the Summer Arts student group. "Even though there are a lot of students involved, they're all going to be playing pieces that are well-known, like 'Hall of the Mountain King' or 'the Flight of the Bumblebee.' I've got students doing the Scherzo from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

"They're all doing these arrangements that are really short and exciting. The people who have been to it in the past really love it for that very reason."

The performers include roughly 100 piano-performance majors, plus younger students from the community — such as those at the preparatory school at the U. or taking lessons from college faculty. Duehlmeier said group sizes range from six to 10 performers each.

Last year, Gunter said, one group performed a piece called the "Balloon Polka." A board was set up with balloons near the piano, and at different times during the music, the group members turned around and popped them. This year, her student group will dress up in costume to perform "Sabre Dance" and a Joplin rag.

The concert will be a fund-raiser for Summer Arts, a year-round program with the focal point being a festival in the summer. There is a competition, where the winners get to play with an orchestra, and the festival has other events to celebrate the many different skills of music students.

"Some students don't like to compete," said Duehlmeier, "but are fabulous sight-readers, so we give awards for sight-reading, for quick study — which is where they get the piece the night before and play it the next day, and so they have one night to learn it. Then we do one on technique, one on improvisation, and one on accompanying."

The Summer Arts Festival is open to piano students 5 and older, and as a result, Duehlmeier said, it's also a good recruiting tool for future music majors. The students who win the competition will be given a chance to perform with an orchestra, which is specifically what the funds raised through this event will pay for.