Internationally acclaimed Kersenbaum performing Sunday to benefit blind

Bowling Green Daily News, KY, USA
Thursday, October 25, 2007

Internationally acclaimed Kersenbaum performing Sunday to benefit blind

By ALICIA CARMICHAEL

acarmichaeel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Legally blind pianist Sylvia Kersenbaum, who has performed with the London 
Symphony and other elite music groups - and whose recordings for the EMI-Angel 
label have won international press acclaim - will be in concert Sunday at 
Western Kentucky University's Van Meter Auditorium to benefit the South Central 
Kentucky Council of the Blind.

There is no admission fee to the 3 p.m. concert, Kersenbaum said, "but a 
contribution of $10 for adults or $3 for students will be appreciated at the 
door."

Kersenbaum, who has taught piano at Western since 1976, said she joined the 
council for the blind after learning about it from blind WKU professor of 
marketing Ronald Milliman.

"I have always been legally blind," she said. "My macular degeneration has not 
progressed, has not been getting worse ... we deal in this organization with 
people who are totally blind, people who have partial vision, people who are 
legally blind and all in between."

Kersenbaum said she wants to help raise money for the council because the 
organization "wants to get a minimum of $10,000 very quick," to help those with 
vision problems get expensive equipment, including magnifiers and computers.

Kersenbaum had planned to perform a concert to benefit the council last year, 
but those plans were scrapped after she fell and broke her left hand.

Now, Kersenbaum said, she's looking forward to her performance Sunday.

Her recovered left hand, which was once pained by arthritis, amazingly feels 
better than it did before she broke it, she said.

The first half of the concert includes sonatas by Haydn and Grieg, while the 
second half will feature "Clair de Lune" by Debussy and two pieces for the left 
hand by Alexander Scriabin.

Scriabin wrote the pieces "for a pianist who lost the use of the right hand 
during the first (World) War," Kersenbaum said.

"These are very, very beautiful pieces," she added, "and if you close your 
eyes, you can't tell there is only one hand playing, which is the point, 
because you are all over the piano with five fingers."

Kersenbaum will end her concert with Chopin's "Scherzo No. 3."

"This is a new piece for me and this is one of my challenges," she said.

- For more information about the South Central Kentucky Council of the Blind, 
visit www.sckcb.org/index.html.


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