Tickling the Ivories

Austin's first piano festival in full swing, featuring stars and aspiring musicians

Austin's first piano festival kicked off on Friday, May 17.

Courtesy photo

Founded in 2012, the Austin Piano Festival is a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing the highest quality classical artists from around the world to Central Texas audiences. Director Matt McLaughlin has been hard at work over the past several months to organize the debut festival celebrating piano music in Austin, along with Johan Botes and Michael Schneider.

"We felt that with such a strong classical music and piano community, Austin deserved a festival devoted primarily to the piano," McLaughlin says. "There are so many fine pianists in town, and many incredible classical organizations, but no festivals devoted only to classical piano."

Following an opening gala on Friday, featuring star guest pianists include Gregory Allen, Sophia Gilmson, Katherine Race, Robert Freeman and more, The festival continues on May 18 with Christopher Guzman in a solo piano recital.

The internationally renowned pianist and winner of the 10th Concours International de Piano d’Orléans, Guzman will perform an exciting concert of diverse solo piano works including music by Chopin and Beethoven.

On Friday, May 24, Kris Pineda will perform some of the most musically forceful and demanding works in the piano repertoire, including the entire set of Chopin Ballades. Pineda's playing conjures descriptions such as intensity, conviction, depth and passion. You won't want to miss hearing this virtuoso artist in a rare Austin performance.

World famous pianist Spencer Myer takes the stage on Saturday, May 25, making his Austin debut in an extraordinary solo recital. Gold Medalist of the 2008 New Orleans International Piano Competition, Myer is garnering stellar audience and critical acclaim from around the globe, rapidly establishing himself as one of the most outstanding pianists of his generation. Myer's program will include Haydn, Debussy and Schubert.

All three of these concerts will take place at University United Methodist Church, with performances starting at 7:30 p.m. McLaughlin says that the festival will have a very open, accessible feel, with the musicians available to meet and chat after the performances. Tickets may be purchased in advance at the Austin Piano Festival website.

The festival also includes a competition component, meant to give outstanding piano students in grades 7-12 a chance to compete for cash prizes, and to participate in masterclasses with our distinguished festival artists. The competition took place on May 11, with four winners in grades 7-9 and three winners from grades 10-12.

"The levels of playing was extraordinarily high, and all of the prizewinners will be performing alongside our guest artists at the closing gala on May 26th," adds McLaughlin.

The masterclasses are meant to give aspiring and talented young pianists the opportunity to work with prestigious musicans from around the country. The masterclass setting is part recital, part lesson, allowing you as an audience member to hear the playing of talented young artists, and watch as they are instructed by masters in the field. Guzman, Pineda and Myer will all teach a master class, as well as festival founder McLaughlin. Admission is free to all master classes.

The festival will conclude with the Closing Gala Concert on Saturday, May 25, which will feature performances from the solo competition winners, alongside the distinguished featured artists. The closing celebration will be followed by a reception for all guests to meet and greet festival artists and award winners.

A native of Delaware, McLaughlin began his studies at the age of eight and was quickly recognized for his precocious abilities. He made his Orchestra Debut at the age of 15 when he was invited as a guest artist for performances of Mozart's Piano Concerto in C Major (KV467) with the Salisbury Symphony Orchestra. As a soloist and collaborator, McLaughlin works regularly with musicians around the country.

"For me classical music is a way to express and share one's inner world on a profound level. I think it is a very important part of life. The idea of being able to help create something that brings this experience to others is a real joy. Every one of our guests is a true artist and I get a real satisfaction hearing them and creating something where others can hear them as well."

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Theatrical History

New play weaves stories of real Austin women together from 1950s on

Photo courtesy of

A photo from the She Was Here dress rehearsal ahead of its world premier.

On January 17, She Was Here, a play about real Latina women in Austin, premieres at Austin Playhouse's new interim theatre space off of West 22nd Street. Although the story is fictional, it was compiled through interviews, making it a truthful rendition of Austin across 70 years.

Written by Austin's renowned Raul Garza and directed by Jerry Ruiz, this poignant but lighthearted play is about how Austin, and culture more generally, have changed over the decades. It's about how women's roles are shifting—moving forward, and sometimes backward; it's about mothers and daughters, and it's about the relationship between people and the space around them.

As Garza puts it, "What imprints do places leave on our soul, and what imprints does our soul leave on [a] place?"

The play was originally written and developed during the pandemic. Garza had received a grant from the city during a time when theatre could be written, but not attended.

"It was a time when there was nothing going on," says Garza, "so we just kind of got reacquainted with what was around us."

For this play's devising team, which included Garza, director Jerry Ruiz, Katie Bender, and mother and daughter Giselle de la Rosa and Chamila Muñoz, what was around them was Austin.

"I wondered what it would be like to wake up 50 years in the past, 60 years in the past, and revisit the exact same physical space but with a new sensibility," says Garza.

Ester A photo of Ester, one of the women whose stories inspired the play. Photo courtesy of Raul Garza

With this idea, Garza and the team began talking to multiple generations of Latina women from Austin, starting with Garza's own mother who went to UT. From there, they expanded their conversations to include multiple groups and multiple family members—activists, mothers, daughters—all via Zoom or the phone. They asked them, How did you get here? What hardships did you encounter? What was it like for you then?

The story that began weaving itself together showed that despite changing times and a changing place, the little things in life always remained the same.

The play, starring Tonie Knight, Alyssa Hurtado, Vivian Noble, and Yesenia García Herrington, is inspired by these stories; but it doesn't focus on any one of them autobiographically. Instead, it follows the lives of two imagined families in one imagined house over the span of decades.

"We see this one consistent place, a physical house, that we imagined was somewhere in the Rainey Street neighborhood," says Garza. "And we see what happens to the lives of the people who inhabit that space, from the 50s through 2020. So it's like you're a fly on the wall, if you could be a fly on the wall in your grandmother's house. The setting is definitely a character."

Joann and her family Joann, pictured here with her family, was one of the women interviewed for this play.Photo courtesy of Raul Garza

At first, this might sound like a play about how things are getting better over time, but of course, it's not that simple. Austin is being developed, and depending on who you ask, we're better or worse off than we were a few decades ago. The same goes for women's rights; it certainly hasn't been a linear progression.

"In the wake of our latest election, it really made us stop and think," Garza says. "Wow, they're talking about the ERA March in 1975; we're talking about the ERA March in 2025. What is going on here?!"

Though the play covers some important and at times heavy topics, Garza says it's also a lot of fun; he hopes the audience comes away with a new appreciation for Austin, for those around them, and for the stories we all hold.

She Was Here is showing at Austin Playhouse Theatre at 405 West 22nd Street, from January 17 though February 9. Tickets range between $24 and $38 and can be purchased online.

theater plays women history