September 30, 3:30
For information on attending, contact Dr. Artina McCain.
The Press Enterprise (Riverside, CA) hailed his “dazzling technique” and his “clean, tidy approach.” Music critic Laurence Vittes described him as an “illumination in music,” and said of his all-Beethoven recital: “Marshall presented a recital so full of musical thrills and beauties, and so in identification with the composer’s own persona, that, for a few hours, it was as if he were communing across the centuries to conjure up a rare and magical musical spectrum.” The Telegraf Online Constanta (Romania) reported that Marshall “captivated the audience” in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20, which he conducted from the piano.
Eldred Marshall began studying the piano at age six and played in public by age seven. His prodigious and inquisitive mind allowed him to master large swaths of the piano repertoire quickly as well as consistently win top prizes at the competitions he entered as a child. By 16, he debuted with orchestra, playing Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto with the Victor Valley Symphony Orchestra. Before entering into Yale University, where he graduated with honors with a B.A. in Political Science, he had already performed all over the United States.
The critically-acclaimed pianist has performed internationally: Spain, Italy, the Republic of San Marino, Belgium, Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, the Ukraine and the People’s Republic of China. He has performed the entire cycle of 32 Beethoven Piano Sonatas in public, from memory, as a concentrated series, twice: once in Portland in 2007 and in San Francisco in 2008. He followed that project with a full West Coast (US) tour of Bach’s Goldberg Variations in 2008 and 2009. In 2016-2017, Marshall toured the US and made his Chinese debut with the Goldberg Variations. In 2018, repeated the tour, of both the US S and China, with Bach’s complete Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 – performed from memory. Upcoming recitals include debut appearances in Canada, Mexico, and Costa Rica. To celebrate Beethoven’s 250th Birthday in 2020, he will perform the cycle of 5 Beethoven piano concertos, the Choral Fantasy, and the cycle of 32 Beethoven Piano Sonatas. Conductors with whom he has collaborated include K. C. Manji, Carlo Ponti, Beau Benson, Greg Grabowski, Kevin Torrefiel, Felix Torres, Michelle Merrill, Jonathan Moore, Jessica Morel and Daniel Wiley.
As an orchestral conductor, Marshall has led several international ensembles: The Ukrainian State Academic Orchestra (Kiev, Ukraine), the Kharkov Youth Symphony (Kharkov, Ukraine), the Pleven Philharmonic Orchestra (Pleven, Bulgaria), the Vidin Philharmonic Orchestra (Vidin, Bulgaria), the Filharmonica Oltenia di Craiova (Craiova, Romania), and the Constanta “Black Sea” Philharmonic Orchestra (Constanta, Romania). In the United States, he has worked as the conductor for the Riverside (CA) Opera Institute’s Children’s Opera Division, and has served as assistant conductor of the Meadows Symphony Orchestra at Southern Methodist University (SMU) and the Opera dell’arte Ensemble (NYC). He has collaborated with the University of North Texas (UNT) Symphony Orchestra. Currently, he is the Artistic Director/Conductor of the Mansfield Philharmonic, in Mansfield, TX.
In addition to his activities as a concert pianist and orchestra conductor, Marshall is the Artist-in-Residence and Associate Director of Music at First United Methodist Church in Garland, TX, where he is the founder and curator of the West Avenue B Community Concert Series. Further, Marshall is the Music Director/Conductor of the Music Ministry Conservatory Choir.
Marshall earned his Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance degree from UNT in 2018. Additionally, he earned three Master of Music degrees from SMU: piano (2011), organ (2012) and orchestral conducting (2013). Institutions at which he has taught include UNT, SMU, and North Texas Central College. His doctoral dissertation topic was on the art of conducting piano concerti from the piano – performance practice, discipline, and whether or not it is “real conducting.”