On April 15, 2023, in the Performing Arts Center recital hall at 11:30 p.m., Luca Pomilio, a music graduate student at Sam Houston State University, performed a set of different piano recitals to the public as part of his required degree. The event was free for everyone to attend, and it was a walk-in as no tickets needed to be purchased. The piano recital took around an hour and twenty minutes to complete.
Luca P. has been playing the piano since he was only three years old and mentions how his family has a history with the instrument. “My mother used to play the piano; she played for a band, and then she stopped because it was too taxing, and then they made me start music, and I just stuck with it. In my family, there are a bunch of people in the piano industry, like in the tuning part. “
The different artists who composed the several recitals were Lowell Liebermann (b. 1961–present); an American composer; Franz Liszt (1811–1866), who was regarded as the greatest piano virtuoso in his time; Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915); an Russian composer who was known for his romantic piano music; and Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881), who was famous for his operas and songs. The entire recital was composed in two sections, with the second one being longer and consisting of only Mussorgsky pieces.
The first section of the recital is composed of Liebermann’s Nocturne No. 10 op. 99, the five recitals’ from the five préludes, op. 16: “No. 1 Andante, No. 2 Allegro, No. 3 Andante Cantabile, No. 4 Lento, and No. 5 Allegretto”, and Scriabin’s “Etudes op. 8 No. 12 etude in D# minor Patetico”.
The second section of the recital is composed of only Mussorgsky’s recitals, “pictures at an exhibition”. Every recital is said to represent a picture that was taken, as each shows the different emotions that were represented in the said pictures. The different recitals are the following: “1. Gnomus (tr: the Gnome), 2. II. Vecchio Castello (the old castle), 3-Tuileries (Children’s Quarrel after Games), 4: Bydlo (cattle), 5: Battle of the unhatched chicks, Samuel” Goldenberg and “Schmuÿle”, 7-Limoges The market (the great news), 8: Catacombs, 9: The hut on Fowl’s Legs, and 10: The great gate of Kiev”.
When asked of the difficulty of playing all these recitals’, Luca P. said, “It’s very difficult to play an entire program and to prepare so many pieces at once, and it’s difficult to manage them all at a high level at once.”
These recitals’ are a requirement for music graduate students at Sam to graduate, and they perform a recital twice a year, so once every semester. In the following few weeks, numerous different recitals will also be played in the Performing Arts Center as other music students work on their individual skills. This will last until the last month of the semester, as there will be quite a few every month.
