Pianist Lise Keiter-Brotzman will perform a guest recital at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 28 in Sweet Briar College’s Memorial Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.

Keiter-Brotzman is chair of the music department at Mary Baldwin College, where she joined the faculty in 1998.

Lise Keiter-BrotzmanShe has played nationwide and in France, including two concerts last year as part of the International Roussel Festival. In the summer of 1998 she was a fellow at the Internationale Academie de Musique in Gargenville, France, where she performed several times.

The pianist, who’s taken an interest in women composers during her tenure at Mary Baldwin, sometimes opts for a theme for her recitals. In 2005 she developed an all-female composers program of solo piano works to honor pianist and composer Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-1847). It’s become her most requested program.

For the Sweet Briar recital, Keiter-Brotzman knew she wanted to play Beethoven’s “Sonata Op. 31, No. 3” and Bach’s “Partita in B-flat Major.”

“I thought the [Bach Partita and Beethoven Sonata] would work well together on the same program,” she said. “So then I just built the rest of the program around those pieces.”

To round it out, she’s chosen works by Chopin, Tchaikovsky and Amy Beach.

“Because I have played a lot of works by women, I like to try to include at least one piece – or collection of pieces – on guest recitals, particularly when I play at colleges or universities,” Keiter-Brotzman said.

“The Amy Beach pieces, from a set called ‘From Grandmother’s Garden,’ have been very popular. Also, like many of her works, one of the pieces shows a clear Chopin influence, and so I thought it would be a nice tie-in for this recital.”

An Illinois native, Keiter-Brotzman has a Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory, where she received several top prizes. She earned her master’s and doctorate in music from Indiana University.

Keiter-Brotzman is active numerous organizations, including serving as Virginia’s competitions chair for the Music Teachers National Association, vice president of the Charlottesville Music Teachers Association and president of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the College Music Society. She also is on the boards of the Valley Symphonic Concerts and the Waynesboro Symphony Orchestra.

For information about this event, please e-mail nross@sbc.edu or call (434) 381-6121.

— By Jennifer McManamay, SBC staff writer