Nashville Symphony Pianist Returns Home to Mineral Area

Mineral Area Council on the Arts (MACOA), the City of Farmington, and Marler Music Center are delighted to present Dr. Robert Marler (pianist) and Dr. Carmine Miranda (cellist) in concert at the Centene Center on Sunday afternoon, February 21st, at 3 p.m. Adult tickets will be $5 at the door. Students 17 years of age and under may attend free of charge.

“Once again, we are bringing an opportunity to the Mineral Area that would have only been experienced in Nashville at Belmont University or some other large city. We are so incredibly blessed!” said Scottye Adkins, Executive Director of MACOA.

Dr. Robert Marler is Professor of Music at Belmont University in Nashville and teaches Graduate and undergraduate piano. He currently serves as the principal keyboardist for the Nashville Symphony for whom he has had the opportunity to record on ten (10) Grammy award winning recordings and sixteen (16) Grammy nominated recordings for the Naxos label. He has similarly played and recorded with the Buffalo Symphony. Dr. Marler is a frequent soloist, chamber musician, orchestra musician and accompanist throughout the Midwest and South with the Alabama Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, the Bryant Symphony, and the Nashville Ballet to name a few. He is also credited with performing with numerous instrumentalists from renowned orchestras worldwide, including the London Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, French National Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony and others. (Bio information from Belmont University and Nashville Symphony)

Dr. Marler, known to the hometown folks as “Bob”, grew up in the Marler Music store in Flat River where he began teaching piano lessons at the age of thirteen. Another of his duties was to demonstrate not only the piano and his high school instrument, the trombone, but other instruments for sale. He began his collegiate studies at Mineral Area College under the tutelage of Robert Vandall, who later became one of the most important composers of piano pedagogy pieces in the country. While in college at University of Missouri, he gradually focused entirely on his principle instrument, the piano.

Dr. Marler will be performing a favorite piece in the Romantic Era style by Russian composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 – 1943), Sonata for Cello and Piano, with colleague Dr. Carmine Miranda. Dr. Miranda is a Belmont Fellow in the School of Music where he teaches cello. Born in Venezuela to Armenian and Italian immigrants, he began his musical studies at the Latin-American Academy of Violoncello and the Simon Bolivar Conservatory of Music where he was a member of the National Youth Orchestra. He continued his music education in the United States earning the Doctoral Degree at University of Cincinnati.

Dr. Miranda is a soloist who has performed worldwide with chamber ensembles and orchestras including Caracas Municipal Symphony, South Czech Philharmonic, and the Moravian Philharmonic. He has also performed in numerous concert halls and music festivals such as Carnegie Hall; the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center at the University of Notre Dame; the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Brunswick, Maine; the Close Encounters with Music Series in Great Barrington, New York; and many more. (Bio information from Belmont University)

Both Dr. Marler and Dr. Miranda are award-winning instrumentalists with several recordings to their credit. The performance will also include selections by the equally fascinating music of 20th Century Russian composer, Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), whose compositions are greatly varied in style as he was inspired by composers of the Romantic Era and his 20th century contemporaries in both Soviet Russia and around the world.

“It is a rare treat in our region to experience the caliber of musicianship and composition we will enjoy with Drs. Marler and Miranda in person on February 21st. The music of Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich requires the highest level of musicianship, which involves both technical skill and expression! Then there’s the connection made through music that brings these two virtuosos together for a common purpose that never ceases to amaze me. The arts have the ability to cross boundaries, to create community, and provide that emotional outlet of expression we so desperately need.”