Dueling pianists duo to play in Utica: How free concert supports Geller music scholarships

The Geller Scholarships Concerts series presents its fourth free event of the year Sunday, June 26, featuring Jo Ann Geller and Bruce Smith at Grace Episcopal Church in Utica.

Their four-hands piano PREformance concert “Dueling Pianists: Look Ma, Four Hands” is a new, eclectic program of classical, jazz and familiar pieces. It is a reprise for the popular piano partners who have been playing together for more than 30 years.

Geller is the duo's prima part player and Smith, the duo's secundo. The pair clearly enjoys playing with one another, as evidenced by the banter, patter and laughter that punctuates their performances. They will be describing their musical selections at this PREformance, explaining background to the compositions, composers and why they enjoy playing them.

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Featured will be Beethoven's "Three Marches, Op. 45 No. 1 in C Major;" Christopher Norton's "Microjazz," whose sections include "Running Shoes," "Waltz,"" Meditation," "Snake Charmer," "Firmly in Place" and "Rolling Pin Blues;" "La Solita Sonata" by Gaetano Donizetti; Norman Dello Joio's "Family Album," which includes "Family Meeting," "Play Time," "Story Time," "Prayer Time" and "Bed Time;" selections from "West Side Story" by Leonard Bernstein, including "America," "I Feel Pretty," "Maria," "One Hand One Heart," "Somewhere" and "Tonight" and Modest Mussorsky's "Sonata" featuring "Scherzo Allegro Non Troppo" and "Allegro Assai."

Geller is a native of Philadelphia where she studied piano at an early age at its Conservatory of Music with Jon Carlin. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Musicology. Geller continued her piano studies with Vladimir Socoloff at the Curtis Institute, then with Leonard Shure in Munich, Germany.

She has been a faculty member at The Wilmington School of Music and an adjunct professor at Mohawk Valley Community College. For decades Geller has maintained a robust schedule of private piano instruction and was inducted with her late husband, Herb into the Rome Arts Hall of Fame in 2011.

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As the son of a mother who played piano well and a father who was a minister, it is little wonder that Smith chose a career in church music. He played his first church service in the sixth grade and has played almost continuously since. A graduate of Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, he took the job of organist and choir director at First Baptist Church in Rome directly out of college.

His tenure there lasted 24 years, serving concurrently for 17 years at Rome’s St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church. Since 2002, Smith has been the organist/choirmaster of Grace Episcopal Church in Utica, while also playing the Saturday afternoon mass for St. Leo and St. Ann Parish in Holland Patent.

Their PREformance is part of a series of instrumental and vocal ensembles which are a prelude to the grand Geller Tribute Concert Band performance at 7:30 pm. Nov. 5 at Rome Free Academy.

The Geller Scholarship Concerts have supported scholastic musical excellence since their inception. The group has awarded $6,950 to 12 Rome Free Academy and Vernon-Verona-Sherrill graduates studying music in college. The group formed in 2018 to honor the late Herb Geller, clarinetist and long-time band director at RFA and VVS.

The concert is at 3 p.m. June 26 at Grace Episcopal Church, 193 Genesee St. in Utica. Donations to the scholarship program will be welcomed at the concert as well as through Paypal.me/gellerscholarship or by check sent to Geller Scholarships, P.O. Box 186, Verona, NY 13478.

This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Utica dueling pianists concert supports Geller music scholarships