UA Little Rock to Welcome Husband and Wife Piano Duo April 1
UA Little Rock will host a concert with piano duo Dr. Naoki Hakutani, associate professor of music (piano), and his wife, Korean pianist Dr. Jaeyeon Park, on Saturday, April 1.
The concert, “Symphonic Piano,” will begin at 3 p.m. in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in the Fine Arts Building at UA Little Rock. The event is free and open to the public.
The concert will feature Antonin Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances in E minor (Op. 72 No. 3) and G minor (Op. 46 No. 8), Moritz Moszkowski’s “From Foreign Lands,” Op. 23 (Germany, Spain and Hungary), and George Gershwin’s Variations on “I Got Rhythm.” The program will finish with Francis Poulenc’s “Concerto for Two Pianos.”
A native of Kent, Ohio, Hakutani holds degrees in piano performance from Northwestern University, Indiana University at Bloomington, and the University of Texas at Austin. He is very active nationally and internationally as an educator, having conducted classes and lectures throughout the United States, Mexico, and Asia. He has performed solo and chamber recitals in Korea, Japan, China, Mexico, and throughout the United States.
In addition to being a past recipient of the Arkansas State Music Teachers Association Teacher of the Year Award, Hakutani was the 2019 winner of the Faculty Excellence Award in Teaching from the College of Arts, Letters, and Sciences at UA Little Rock. In 2021, Hakutani was inducted into the Steinway & Sons Teacher Hall of Fame in New York City.
Currently an adjunct lecturer in piano with UA Little Rock Extended Education, Park taught for 12 years at Chosun University in South Korea as a Professor of Piano where she served as department chair for six years. She has been awarded Chosun University’s Faculty Award of Excellence in Teaching and Award of Excellence in Research three times each.
Park is a founding member of the trio Uno Animo, which has been broadcast on MBC-FM and KBS-FM and KBC-TV. She has served as the music director of Ensemble-On since 2018 and has received numerous grants from the South Korean government for support of her concerts.
For more information, contact the UA Little Rock School of Literary and Performing Arts at 501-916-3291.
