Annual Payne family concert set for Oct. 20 at USC School of Music

October 14, 2008

COLUMBIA, SC – October 14, 2008 – The University of South Carolina’s School of Music will present the biennial Payne Family Concert, featuring Dorothy Payne, distinguished professor emerita of music theory, and her two siblings Oct. 20.

The concert is free and will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the School of Music recital hall.

Payne and her siblings, Karl Payne and Rebecca Payne Shockley — all pianists — began performing in concert in 1993 to honor their late mother, Dorothy Stolzenbach Payne, and father, Karl Payne. Mrs. Payne was an accomplished pianist and teacher who fostered her children’s love and gift for piano performance. Mr. Payne was a violinist who also encouraged his children’s musical careers.

The program will feature works by J.S. Bach, Claude Debussy, Percy Grainger, Arthur Foote, Reinhold Glière, Domenico Cimarosa, Valery Gavrilin, Arthur Benjamin and Federico Mompou.

Dorothy Payne, a former dean of the School of Music, holds three degrees from the Eastman School of Music, where she taught theory and ear training for 13 years. She is co-author, with Stefan Kostka, of “Tonal Harmony,” a theory text published by McGraw-Hill that recently appeared in its sixth edition.

Karl earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in piano performance from Indiana University. He has been on the faculty of the Toedtman School of Music in Cincinnati, Ohio, and has served as music director of the New Thought Unity Center of Cincinnati. He is music director of Garden Park Unity Church.

Shockley is professor of piano pedagogy and coordinator of class piano at the University of Minnesota. She earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Indiana University, a doctoral degree from the University of Colorado and a performer’s licentiate from the Royal Academy of Music in London.  She is the author of “Mapping Music: For Faster Learning and Secure Memory – A Guide for Piano Teachers and Students” (A-R Editions, 1997) and a contributor to “Piano Discoveries,” a piano method published by Lorenz in 2001.

For more information, call the School of Music at 803-777-4280 or visit the Web site at www.music.sc.edu/.