November 5th: Coker Music to Present Faculty-Guest Recital

Coker College will present a recital featuring cellist Richard Thomas and pianist Jun Matsuo on Monday, Nov. 5 at 7:30 p.m. in the Hannah Lide Coker Recital Hall. 

The pair will present a wide range of music including works by Boccherina, Brahms, Popper and Piazzolla.  Admission is free.

Earlier this month Assistant Professor of Music Matsuo was officially designated as a Steinway Artist by the world-renowned Steinway & Sons. Versatile as both a solo and collaborative performer, Matsuo joined the Coker College faculty in 2009 as a visiting assistant professor of music, teaching piano and music theory.

In addition to South Carolina, she has appeared as a guest pianist in New York, Maine, Florida, North Carolina and Texas. Her international activities have included a recital and lecture at the Universitii Sains Malaysia in Penang, Malaysia; performances of Spanish and South American Music for Cello and Piano in Japan; and master classes with Dominique Merlet, Pascal Devoyon, Noel Lee, and Roy Howat at the French Piano Institute in Paris, France. She also recently presented a lecture on Carl Czerny at the World Piano Conference in Novi Sad, Serbia.

Matsuo earned her Doctor of Musical Arts in piano pedagogy from the University of South Carolina, and prior degrees from Binghamton University and the State University of New York at Plattsburgh.

Matsuo’s teachers include Nanako Tamaki, Kathryn Stuart, Peter Takacs, Walter Ponce and Charles Fugo as well as Diane Richardson and John Keene in collaborative study.

Thomas directs the Presbyterian College Chamber Orchestra and is a member of the North Carolina-based Atlantean Piano Trio and the Greater Anderson Musical Arts Consortium Orchestra in Anderson, South Carolina. He is a former member of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Colombia in Bogotá and the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional of the Dominican Republic. He has performed and taught throughout North America, South America and Asia. In the summer of 2010, Thomas and Matsuo performed a series of recitals in Japan.