UNK faculty, students performing Sunday at ‘Piano Extravaganza’

KEARNEY – University of Nebraska at Kearney faculty and students will be joined by the Atlantic Piano Duo during the upcoming “Piano Extravaganza.”

The concert scheduled for 5 p.m. Sunday (April 22) in the Fine Arts Building recital hall features UNK collaborative pianist Jayoung Hong, assistant music professor Beth Mattingly and piano students Seungwon Lee and Kangyoung Ban. The Atlantic Piano Duo is comprised of University of Nebraska at Omaha assistant professor Kristín Jónína Taylor and her husband Bryan Stanley.

The event is free and open to the public.

A native of South Korea, Hong maintains a teaching schedule while performing as a soloist and collaborative pianist at venues such as Carnegie Hall and Merkin Concert Hall in New York City and numerous international locations. She’ll perform a solo recital in June at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Hong, who joined the UNK music faculty in 2015, previously served as a piano faculty member at universities in South Korea and Canada. She spends her summers teaching piano at camps in Canada, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Korea.

Mattingly, who is co-coordinator of the music education program at UNK, earned a doctorate in music education from the University of Oklahoma and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano performance from the University of Tulsa. In 2013, she was awarded a Fulbright student grant that allowed her to live in Hungary for nine months and conduct research at the Kodály Institute of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music.

Taylor is an Icelandic-American pianist who has released four albums and performed widely in the U.S., as well as in Iceland, France, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Sweden, Austria and Serbia.

Stanley, an accomplished pianist and composer, is a frequent guest artist with the Park City International Chamber Music Festival and member of the Beethoven Festival Trio. He has played for former President Bill Clinton.

Formed in 2015, the Atlantic Piano Duo is named after Stanley’s hometown of Atlantic, Iowa, as well as the stretch of ocean leading to Taylor’s Icelandic roots.

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