Asheville Area Piano Forum 2024 Fall Benefit Concert Performers

Douglas Weeks is Babcock Professor Emeritus of Piano at Converse University and served on the artist/faculty of the Brevard Music Festival for forty summers. He has performed in Europe and China, as well as in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia under the auspices of the US State Department. A past prize winner in the Robert Casadesus International Piano Competition (now the Cleveland International Competition), he also competed in the VI International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. Following the BM degree he studied in Paris for a year with the esteemed pedagogue Jules Gentil.

Brian Turner is a pianist, composer & recording artist. Brian & American Idol winner Caleb Johnson toured with KISS performing in arenas across the U.S. & Canada. He also toured as keyboard player with Meat Loaf’s Neverland Express & has rocked with Sammy Hagar, Joan Jett, Cheap Trick, Warren Haynes, etc. Brian can be seen on American Idol, LA Today & Interscope Records music video. He earned degrees in Piano Performance & Pedagogy at Ohio University, releases solo piano music, and teaches privately. brianturnerpiano.com bio.site/brianturnerpiano Diane Coombs has served as piano teacher for 10+ years in both Virginia and S. Dakota & as both traditional church pianist & worship team keyboardist for 40+ years in Kentucky, Virginia, S. Dakota & N. Carolina. Performances include: Buncombe Baptist Assoc. Choir Christmas performances at Biltmore & Grove Park; accompanying the AC Reynolds Middle School choir & bell soloist Christine Anderson. Diane earned a Bachelor of Music Education, majoring in piano, from Georgetown College, Kentucky, & Master of Rehabilitation Counseling from University of Kentucky.

Dr. Leonidas Lagrimas serves as Assistant Professor of Piano and Piano Pedagogy for the WCU School of Music. His main duties include Applied Piano and coordinating the Class Piano program. An emerging leader in piano pedagogy research, Dr. Lagrimas serves on the editorial board of American Music Teacher, the official journal of Music Teachers National Association, and is Editor of the North Carolina Music Teachers Association Journal. Leo is active throughout the region as a solo and collaborative performer and serves as AAPF Vice President and board member. Recent and upcoming performances include guest artist recitals at the University of Florida, Appalachian State University, University of Alabama, UNC-Charlotte, and numerous faculty recitals at WCU. Past collaborative piano highlights include performances with Grammy-winning soprano Hila Plitmann, country superstar Lorrie Morgan, and multiple Carnegie Hall appearances.

Polly Feitzinger is one of the founding members of AAPF. She is a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory as a piano performance major and has a master’s degree in Piano Pedagogy from Columbia University with two years additional study at the Mozarteum Akademie in Salzburg, Austria where she studied music history as well as harpsichord. Her teaching emphasis now is teaching adults who dropped out at age 14 and regretted it! Sue Guerry graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a BM degree and an MM degree in organ performance. She served as organist at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Charleston and at Christ Episcopal Church in Savannah. For many years she was the keyboard performer and rehearsal accompanist with the Savannah Symphony Orchestra. She has played organ and harpsichord recitals throughout the Southeast and has been a member of several chamber ensembles. She now resides in Black Mountain and Savannah.

Dr. Hwa-Jin Kim, a renowned pianist and educator, was born in Daegu, South Korea. Her musical talent was recognized early, and she performed on MBC Television at the age of seven, later debuting as a soloist with the Daegu Symphony Orchestra at fourteen. She earned a full scholarship to Seoul National University and went on to receive her Master’s and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, where she also became the youngest faculty member. Dr. Kim has taught at the Manhattan School of Music and Brown University and currently teaches at UNC Asheville. She served as director and coach of the Asheville Young Musicians Club and founded the Asheville Chopin Club. She is also the founder and director of the UNC Asheville Summer Piano Camp. In 2024, Dr. Kim was awarded the Steinway Top Teacher Award in recognition of her commitment to musical excellence and pedagogical innovation.

Dr. Leslie Downs is active as both a solo and collaborative pianist. He has performed in solo, lieder, chamber and choral concerts throughout the United States and in Canada. A versatile artist, Dr. Downs enjoys playing many styles of music. For 16 years he worked as a freelance pianist/teacher/vocal coach in New York City. He currently serves as the Music Director for the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Asheville and maintains a private teaching studio. He holds degrees from Centenary College of Louisiana, Yale University, and University of Oklahoma.

Classical composer & pianist Nathan Shirley has received one national and six international awards for his solo, chamber, and orchestral compositions. As a teenager he studied composition with Olga Harris, the last student of Aram Khachaturian. Shirley's music has been performed in over a dozen countries around the world and is available on CD, DVD, and online. He is the author of Piano Revealed, a 7 book piano method featuring his original compositions. A former president of the Asheville Piano Forum, he lives in the North Carolina mountains with his wife and children.

Karen Boyd graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory (B.M.), West Chester University (M.M.), and did post-grad studies at Rutgers University. She is a founding member of AAPF, and is its president for 2024-25. With fifty years of teaching experience, her students have won competitions and many have continued music study at major universities. As a performer Karen played in chamber music ensembles and accompanied many choral groups. She loves playing piano duets and two piano music. Karen is also a member of NCMTA. Wayne Smith, DMA is a solo pianist, accompanist and church organist (St. James Episcopal church in Black Mountain). Wayne and Karen Boyd recently formed the Swannanoa Piano Duo to explore and perform four hand repertoire. He is currently a board member of the AAPF and a former chair of the AAPF benefit concerts committee. Wayne has been piano soloist with the Dallas Symphony and the Tulsa Philharmonic. Past performances in Washington DC include a solo recital for former First Lady, Betty Ford, and a recital at the National Gallery of Art.

Marilynn Seits is a performer, composer and jazz piano teacher who has lived and worked in New York City, South Florida and Asheville. She is an adjunct faculty member at MHU in the music department and wrote the music for ten albums of jazz and New Age music. Carla Bley was an important influence in Marilynn’s music especially her “less is more” attitude about jazz and avant-garde music. Bley’s influence is apparent in Marilynn’s CD, Soundscapes, recorded with saxophonist Peter Ponzol and percussionist Abbey Rader. There were no specific keys, time signatures or themes for the pieces in Soundscapes. Each track began with a phrase started by one of the musicians and grew from there into a whole improvised album. Sean McAusland plays six string fretless bass, and he has played in jazz, rock and blues bands for many years in Burlington Vermont, South Florida and in Asheville. He has done several recordings with The Marilynn Seits Jazz Ensemble and has also done the graphics for most of Marilynn’s CD’s and for AAPF Concerts. You can see his oil paintings at Trackside Studios on Depot Street in the River Arts District of Asheville.

Pianist, composer, scholar and educator William Bares received his Ph.D in ethnomusicology from Harvard in 2009. He taught at Harvard, Brown, Berklee and NEC before taking a job as professor of music and co-director of jazz studies at UNC Asheville. His research interests include transatlantic jazz, jazz-classical crossovers, and environmental music. He currently serves as the NEH Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at UNC Asheville, having published widely, with articles appearing in Jazz Perspectives, Jazz Research Journal, and American Music, among others. His book, “Jazz and the European Dream" is forthcoming on Routledge Press. Bares is also an active performer. After earning his MM from the University of Miami in 1999, he played professionally in New York, Boston and Europe. Since 2011, Bares has been an active member of Asheville's musical community, coordinating the Asheville Jazz Workhshop and the Sunday "Jazz Showcase" at Asheville’s famed Isis Music Hall. He has released four albums as a leader or co-leader, and his modern jazz group, The Core, was voted "Best Jazz Group” in the Mountain XPress Best of Western North Carolina awards. Discover more billbaresmusic on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and billbaresmusic.com.