Glazer, Parakilas perform Russian music for two pianos

James Parakilas, the James L. Moody Jr. Family Professor of Performing Arts, contributed The Story of Opera to the Bates faculty's scholarly output of 21 books and textbooks in 2012–13. Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

James Parakilas, James L. Moody Jr. Family Professor of Performing Arts. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.)

Frank Glazer and James Parakilas, members of the Bates College music faculty who rank among Maine’s best-known musicians, perform a program of music for two pianos by Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff and other Russian composers at 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 12, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

The concert is free and open to the public.

Frank Glazer. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Frank Glazer. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

The program includes Igor Stravinsky’s Concerto for Two Pianos, which the composer created in 1935 to perform with his son, Soulima; and Sergey Rachmaninoff’s Fantasie-tableaux (Suite No. 2), four pieces that interpret works by Russian and English poets.

James Parakilas won international notice in 2000 for the book Piano Roles: 300 Years of Life with the Piano (Yale University Press, 2000), which he edited and largely wrote. A music scholar with a doctorate from Cornell University, he is the James L. Moody, Jr. Family Professor of Performing Arts at Bates.

Parakilas teaches courses on musical drama and other topics in music history and culture, coaches student chamber musicians and performs in chamber groups with students and colleagues. He also wrote the book Ballads Without Words: Chopin and the Tradition of the Instrumental Ballade (Amadeus Press, 1992). He lives in Lewiston.