Adams: 12 Etudes

Dr. H. Leslie Adams is a native of Cleveland who studied voice, piano, conducting and composition at Oberlin. The following are the composer's impressions on these pieces, taken from the printed program that accompanied the Cleveland recital of February 2002. "Welcome to my world of music. Allow me to share with you my thoughts and feelings through this unique medium of expression. These Etudes for Piano are a personal labor of love. They were begun to fill a void in my creative catalog of works. Up until then, only a few short pieces existed; now, with the Etudes, a quite extensive amount of material is at hand. Created primarily with the concert pianist's repertoire in mind, these studies can easily be played by a number of pianists at various levels of development. These are essentially studies of varying styles, moods, tonalities, and thematic natures - each providing different technical challenges, while expressing my personal sense of beauty." Jamaican-born Canadian pianist Maria Thompson Corley, gave her first public performance at the age of eight. Her undergraduate work was completed at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, and she received both Masters and Doctorate degrees in piano performance from the Juilliard School, where she was a student of Gyorgy Sandor. Formerly an assistant professor at Florida A & M University, she currently serves as staff accompanist at Millersville University in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.