UpDate - Vol. 14, No. 22, Page 4
March 2, 1995
America's 'first lady of the piano' in Mitchell Hall

     Ruth Laredo, hailed as "America's first lady of the piano" by the
New York Daily News, will appear in concert at 8 p.m., Friday, March
17, in Mitchell Hall.
     The program for her Newark appearance includes Prelude and Fugue
in G minor by Bach, Sonata in D minor, Op. 31, No. 2, "The Tempest" by
Beethoven, Liebesleid by Kreisler and Rachmaninoff, Gavotte from the
Violin Partita in E Major by Bach and Rachmaninoff, Valse nobles
sentimentales and La Valse by Ravel and other works by Rachmaninoff.
     She also will present a master class, free and open to the
public, at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, March 16, in the Amy E. du Pont Music
Building.
     Laredo has a distinguished, worldwide reputation as a leading
soloist, recitalist and recording artist. While she is particularly
renowned for her pioneering recordings of the complete solo piano
music of Rachmaninoff and the complete piano sonatas of Scriabin, her
broad repertoire ranges from Beethoven to Barber.
     She has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Kennedy
Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Library of Congress and
the White House, and with such prestigious orchestras as the New York
Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the
Boston Symphony and the St. Louis Symphony.
     In March l992, Laredo served as artistic director of a 13-hour
Robert Schumann marathon at Symphony Space in New York City. Her
recent tour of Russia and Ukraine, highlighted by recitals in Moscow,
St. Petersburg and Odessa, formed part of an extensive television
profile on CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt.
     A three-time Grammy award nominee, Laredo has been widely lauded
for her numerous recording projects.
     In great demand as an eloquent and authoritative commentator on
the arts and piano literature, she is a regular columnist for Keyboard
Classics magazine, a frequent guest critic on WQXR's long-running
First Hearing program and a special arts correspondent for National
Public Radio's Morning Edition. In addition, she has published The
Ruth Laredo Becoming a Musician Book, a guide for aspiring pianists,
drawn from her personal experiences.
     As one of the pre-eminent woman pianists in the U.S., Laredo is a
role model for women in the arts. Nominated for "Woman of the Year,"
by Ladies Home Journal, she also was a guest speaker at the second
annual Harvard/Radcliffe Women's Leadership Conference in September
1989 at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
     In 1984, she was selected as the special guest soloist at the
gala Carnegie Hall American Symphony Orchestra concert marking the
centennial of Stokowski's birth. She also has had the honor of being
one of only five pianists chosen by Carnegie Hall to perform in a
concert as part of its 90th anniversary celebration.
     Laredo's appearance is part of the University's Performing Arts
Series and is made possible, in part, by a grant from the Delaware
Division of the Arts, a state agency.
     Concert tickets are $15 for the general public, $10 for
University faculty, staff and senior citizens and $6 for students. For
information, call UD1-HENS or 831-2204.