The Department of Music hosts Evan Mitchell, professor of piano at Tarrant County College, as he gives a concert on campus in Nicholas Martin Hall on Oct. 25 at 7:30 p.m.

Lauded for his “impassioned and vigorous” playing (Pianomania), pianist Evan Mitchell has established himself as a bold and versatile artist. Evan’s richly varied schedule consistently includes solo recitals, concerti, chamber music, and performances as an orchestral keyboardist. His performances have been deemed “incredibly beautiful” (Fanfare), “amazing” (Fort Worth Weekly), and “no less than stunning” (Lima News). Evan’s new recording of world premieres with bassist Szymon Marciniak is earning rave reviews; most recently, Bass World called their performances “intoxicating,” calling this “a seminal recording.” He is also featured on the 2012 release “Piano de Pampa y Jungla: A Collection of Latin American Piano Music.”

Evan’s performances have been heard in New York’s Steinway Hall and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, in ten countries on four continents, and broadcast on WFMT (Chicago), WFHB (Bloomington, IN), FM 91 (Northwest Ohio), Shanghai Classical FM Radio, and KXII-TV (Sherman, TX). Recent solo highlights include debuts for Cliburn at the Modern, the prestigious Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts (Chicago), and at several major venues in Shanghai. He has played concerti with such ensembles as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Lima Symphony Orchestra, and the Victoria Symphony; collaborated with conductors including Jaap van Zweden, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Case Scaglione, Darryl One, Crafton Beck, and Richard McKay; and has performed chamber music with members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the symphony orchestras of Cleveland, Dallas, and Rio de Janeiro (OSB). The 2018-19 season finds Evan soloing in concertos by Beethoven, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky, collaborating in chamber music projects including the piano and woodwind quintets of Mozart and Beethoven as well as the rarely-performed Piano Quintet by blind Bohemian composer Josef Labor, and performing solo recitals across the country featuring the twelve etudes of Claude Debussy.

Equally in demand as a collaborative pianist, Evan has performed in recital with such major artists as double bassist Gary Karr, flutists Leone Buyse and Jim Walker, clarinetists Corrado Giuffredi and Michael Webster, and hornist Javier Bonet. He has been engaged for several seasons on the Mount Vernon Music and Color of Sound chamber series and served as a staff accompanist for conventions held by the International Society of Bassists and BassEuro; the Myrna Brown Flute Competition and Cliburn Junior International Piano Competition; and the TCU Flute and Double Bass Festivals.

A passionate and articulate advocate for the arts, Evan looks constantly for ways to reach new audiences, and to inspire in others a love for music. The Texas Commission on the Arts recently named Evan to its Texas Touring Roster, and this coming season, he returns for a seventh year as a featured artist for Cliburn in the Classroom^®, the signature educational outreach program of the Cliburn. Other performance affiliations include Avant Chamber Ballet, Texas Winds Musical Outreach, Fort Worth Opera, and DFW-based Open Classical, whose motto – “Music that’s dressed down, not dumbed down” – summarizes a mission to present classical music in less formal, unconventional spaces.

A prizewinner in the World Piano Competition of Cincinnati, Evan has also captured first prize in the Kingsville International Young Performers Competition, Five Towns Competition, and the PianoTexas International Festival Concerto Competition. Most recently, he gave a recital at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City as a quarterfinalist in the Honens International Piano Competition.

Evan holds degrees from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and Texas Christian University, where his principal teachers have included John Owings, Arnaldo Cohen and the late José Feghali, and he has worked with numerous renowned artist-teachers including Dr. Yoheved Kaplinsky, Barry Douglas, and Ann Schein. He serves on the faculty of Tarrant County College and has recently given guest masterclasses at the University of Florida, Santa Fe College, and Southwestern University. For more information, please visit www.evanmitchell.net.