Flutist Susan Milan and pianist Lillian Buss Pearson will perform at Northwestern State University Tuesday, April 4 at 7:30 p.m. in Magale Recital Hall. Admission is free and open to the public.
The program will feature works by Richard Rodney Bennett, Ph. Gaubert, Bohuslav Martinu, Edward German, Olivier Messiaen and Claude Debussy.
Milan has forged a career as orchestra principal, chamber musician, recitalist, soloist and recording artist and has performed in festivals, music clubs and as soloist and principal flute with all the major orchestras in the United Kingdom She continues to perform in Europe, the U.S., South Africa, Russia, Australia and East Asia. She has given numerous world and UK premieres and has inspired contemporary composers to write for her, among them Richard Rodney Bennett, Antal Dorati, Carl Davis, Jindrich Feld, Edwin Roxburgh, Robert Saxton, Ole Schmidt, Robert Simpson, Keith Gates, Cecilia McDowall, Brian Lock and recently Douglas Weiland. This year, Milan will record concertos by Richard Rodney Bennett, Robert Simpson and Carl Davis with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra to be released on the Divine Art label.
Milan is regularly heard on BBC and Classic FM radio and has recorded most of the mainstream repertoire on the Chandos, Hyperion, Upbeat, Da Capo, Omega, Denon, Cala, Divine Art and Metier labels. In the academic field, she has researched and published 19th century repertoire for Boosey & Hawkes and she is currently researching and revising “6 Sonatinas” by W. Popp for Spartan Press. She is also restoring and processing for CD her collection of historic 78 recordings of flautists 1910-1945.
Milan is a professor and fellow of the Royal College of Music, London, where she was herself a scholar at the age of 16, and she is also professor of flute at Trinitylaban Conservatory, London. She enjoys giving master classes internationally and has been a member of numerous competition juries. As director and founder of the British Isles Music Festival, she masterminds an annual international summer chamber music and master class course for outstanding young musicians exploring works with woodwind, strings, piano, harp and voice.
Pearson has appeared throughout the continental United States and England as a soloist and collaborative artist. She is associate professor of music and coordinator for keyboard studies at Western Carolina University. Pearson holds degrees from Florida State University and the University of Illinois,
Her interest in historically informed performance practice has led her to study harpsichord and fortepiano. In 199,7 she spent seven months in England performing and working intensively with Nelly Ben-Or of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, studying piano and the Alexander Technique. During this time she also spent considerable time examining and playing historical keyboard instruments, especially nineteenth-century pianos.
Pearson has appeared as soloist, twice with the Asheville Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, the Breckenridge Festival Orchestra, the Western Carolina Civic Orchestra, the National Chamber Players and the Brandenburg Ensemble. This past summer she was a pianist at the International Flute Festival of Costa Rica. For many years she was a regular performer in the Breckenridge Music Festival and also performed in the Cullowhee Summer Music Festival. Pearson has served as an official accompanist for the International Horn Workshop, the International Double-Reed Society, the International Trumpet Guild, the Southeastern Horn Workshop, the Southeastern Composers League Forum, and Wildacres Flute and Chamber Music Symposium, the British Isles Music Festival, as well as performing for the National Flute Association, the Florida Flute Fair, the Music Teachers National Association Collegiate Artist Competition and the Bodky Competition.