Dr. Christine Sotomayor Lopez, Director of Keyboard studies, hosted Dr. Allison Edwards, California State University Fullerton, piano faculty, who performed April 27, at the Cerritos College piano concert.

The concert hall was almost full with music students and guests. Lopez delivered an opening lecture explaining what fantasy in music means and how this concept was going to be demonstrated by Edwards by playing out the pieces of music in the scheduled program.

While lecturing, Lopez played certain notes to the audience to illustrate her point.

The event is part of a series of music programs presented by the piano faculty and guest artists who are pianists, and the goal is to introduce piano students an opportunity to expose to various piano literature.

“The concept is to do a lecture which introduces my piano students an opportunity to expose to all those wonderful piano literature out there,” Lopez said.

“This can be solo literature, chamber literature or literature written for two pianos. There is so much music literature written for this fantastic instrument that I decided this to be a good chance for me to focus on piano by doing a lecture series,” she continued.

The idea of the concert series is to present one concept at a time. This time, the chosen theme was “Fantasy” which Lopez lectured on for about 35 minutes before the actual recital began. This was Lopez’s usual method of teaching, so that the students were able to see for themselves and appreciate how the concept translates into music.

Lopez explains who her guest is, “My guest artist this year is the most fantastic pianist who teaches at Cal State Fullerton. Her name is Allison Edwards. She actually put together this program herself, and it is called, Piano Fantasies or Key Board Fantasies.”

This concert series was intended to bring additional benefit to the music students through live music so that it inspires them by getting to see, hear and feel how a concept turns real through music.

“Too many students these days spend so much time listening to only what’s on the computer or CDs. We need to better appreciate the arts and support each other. My philosophy is that my students need to watch music come to life in front of them,” Lopez said.

Edwards first delivered a brief lecture on the pieces of music she was going to perform at the concert. She started with Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, meaning a compositional technique in two or more voices built on the subject theme, which in this case was Fantasia, that was introduced at the beginning in imitation and was brought back frequently in the course of the composition.

The second piece Edwards played was Sonata, “Quasi Una Fantasia” was actually named by its composer Beethoven as a fantasy.

The third was a very short piece by Brahms, and she finished with “Phantastes, a fantasy for solo piano” written specifically for Edwards by the famous living composer JAC Redford, who writes for television and movies and was invited to attend the event.

Medea Hsieh, piano student of Lopez, said, “I learned a lot about fantasia today. I loved the first three pieces of music, but the contemporary music is not my thing. However, I truly appreciate the wonderful performance of the pianist.”

Many students benefited from seeing a live performance that put them in the picture as to what theory meant.

“I like this series because it gives me an opportunity to see a pianist playing a piece and seeing how their language is put into a piano. It’s different from seeing it on the paper or notes. It’s a new open widow,” said Spanish major Priscilla Flores.

Edwards found her debut very exciting and commented toward the music department, “This is a very vibrant environment here at Cerritos College. I am very impressed with the students in the music department.”

She also said, “I noticed the energy and passion in the faculty members. Professor Lopez is amazing. She obviously is very devoted to her students.”