An evening of 20th- and 21st-Century piano favorites!

Also featuring the debut of local composer Jon Forshee’s Opening Windows of a Memory Palace, written for solo piano with electronic enhancement, as well as music by Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Sergei Prokofiev, and Alice Ho.

Kelly McSweeney Zuercher joined the music department at UCCS in the fall of 2016, where she teaches both class piano and private piano lessons.

Mrs. Zuercher is Principal Pianist of the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, and holds a Master of Music in Piano Performance degree from the University of Louisville, where she studied with Lee Luvisi.

Other degrees include a Performance Diploma from Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, and Bachelor of Music from Oklahoma City University.

A native of Oklahoma City, she has appeared throughout the United States as a soloist, chamber musician, and in concerts with her husband, David, principal trumpet of the Colorado Springs Philharmonic.

Mrs. Zuercher enjoys performing chamber music in the Pikes Peak region, and has appeared as soloist with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic and the Chamber Orchestra of the Springs.

She has served as an adjudicator for the Rocky Mountain International Amateur Pianists Competition, Music Teachers National Association, and the National Federation of Music Clubs.

Having made her solo debut at age twelve with the Oklahoma City Symphony, Mrs. Zuercher’s teachers have included Philelle McBrayer, Clarence Burg, Richard Cass, Jules Gentil, and Lee Luvisi; she also has coached with Malcolm Frager and Emmanuel Ax.

Mrs. Zuercher had the pleasure of helping select the beautiful Steinway concert grand especially for the Ent Center for the Performing Arts, which she will play in this performance.

Jon Forshee is a composer of electroacoustic music and new media, with many works developed through close collaboration.

Born on the Great Plains of Oklahoma, Jon has studied composition and computer music at Bowling Green State University, the Eastman School of Music, and the University of California San Diego; Jon pursued additional music studies abroad in Xi’an, China, and in Paris, France where he studied computer music at CCMIX, the “Xenakis studios”, during an extended stay.

Currently, Jon serves as Instructor of Music Technology at UCCS where he teaches Computer Music, Composition, Audio Engineering and Music Theory.

Jon also lectures and writes on current musical topics, and recently presented his research on drone music at the Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory Conference in March, 2023.