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Third Annual Hulse Memorial Concert Is Oct. 13

Dr. Amber Nicholson

The First Lutheran Church Concert Series will sponsor the third annual Helga Hulse Memorial Concert featuring Valerie Lettieri Mann and Dr. Amber Shay Nicholson as guest piano recitalists on Sunday, Oct. 13, at 4 p.m.

Mann was a former piano student of Helga Hulse for many years. She will perform music by Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Grieg, Poulenc, and Rachmaninoff for her portion of the concert.

Mann was guided to music by her parents, Michael and Theresa Lettieri, and by her inspirational music teachers, Rudolf Schrek, Helga Hulse, Mary Anne Harp, and Brian Bogey. At age 14 and 15, Mann was the rehearsal/piano accompanist for musical productions at St. James Church. At 16, Helga Hulse presented Mann for her first solo recital at the Fenton Mansion. At age 17, Mann performed Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Jamestown High School Orchestra, under the direction of Jeffrey Corbin.

As a piano student of Phyllis East at the State University at Fredonia, she won the Concerto Competition, performing Mendelssohn’s G Minor Piano Concerto with the Fredonia College Orchestra under the direction of Harry John Brown. After receiving her Bachelor of Music, she became a general music teacher for the Jamestown Public School District as well as other schools in New York state for many decades. Lettieri continues her private piano teaching to students of all levels at the Valerie Lettieri Mann Piano Studio. Mann has two grown children, Cameron and Morgan, and they reside in New York City.

Dr. Amber Shay Nicholson is the second artist who will perform music by Franz Joseph Haydn and Frederic Chopin. She earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied extensively with Nelita True and served as her studio assistant. In addition to serving as adjunct professor of piano at Jamestown Community College and piano instructor at Rocsato Conservatory of Music, Nicholson also runs a private piano studio and has served on the keyboard faculties at Allegheny College, Slippery Rock University, and University of Southern Mississippi.

Nicholson has been featured as soloist with the Warren Philharmonic Orchestra, the Southern Miss Symphony Orchestra, and Eastman Philharmonia. She has collaborated with faculty artists from Eastman School of Music, East Carolina University, Yale University, Indiana University of PA Penn State University, Shenandoah University, and the University of Southern Mississippi, among others.

Notable honors include invitations to perform at both the 2002 International Workshops in Stavanger, Norway, and the 2002 International Summer Music Academy in Leipzig, Germany. Nicholson was the only U.S. citizen to be accepted into the 2001 TCU/Van Cliburn International Piano Institute in Fort Worth, Texas. She won the 2001 Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 3 piano concerto competition at Eastman and performed that work with orchestra. In 1997, she received a special prize at the Vladimir Horowitz Internation Piano Competition in Kiev, Ukraine. Dr. Nicholson was named a Liberace Scholar at Eastman School of Music.

Nicholson lives in Tidioute, Pa.,with her husband Jeremy (owner of King Building Supply) and homeschools their four children.

There will be no concert fee, however, a freewill offering will be received to cover concert expenses and to go towards the Helga Hulse Scholarship Fund through the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation. A reception will follow in the church parlors.

Starting at $2.99/week.

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