Piano series begins on Saturday in Port Townsend

PORT TOWNSEND – William Chapman Nyaho will perform Saturday at 3 p.m.

The piano concert is part of the new “Art and Our Schimmel Grand” series in the sanctuary of Grace Lutheran Church of Port Townsend, 1120 Walker St.

To support the series opening concert, a donation of $20 per person is suggested.

Chapman Nyaho plays music by Chopin, Bach, Rachmaninoff, Florence Price, Margaret Bonds and Samuel Coleridge Taylor.

The program also includes music by composers from Cuba and Egypt.

Chapman Nyaho holds degrees from St. Peter’s College, Oxford University, the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, and the University of Texas at Austin.

Chapman Nyaho is a lecturer at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, runs a private piano studio in Seattle, and is a summer instructor at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Interlochen, Michigan.

Chapman Nyaho is a champion of the music of composers of African descent and has compiled and edited a five-volume anthology entitled Piano Music of Africa and the African Diaspora.

The concert is the first in a series featuring pianists from the Pacific Northwest and highlights the church’s Schimmel grand piano, purchased in memory of late parishioner George Hanson.

Hanson, who died in 2018, retired to Port Townsend after a career at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Other concerts in the series include Dainius Vaicekonis on October 20th and Rachelle McCabe on April 6th.

For more information, call 360-385-1595 or email [email protected].