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Monday, March 31, 2025 at 8 p.m.
Squires Recital Salon
Free; no reservation required
Find program link here

Richard Masters is a soloist, opera coach, chamber musician, orchestral pianist, and an associate professor of piano and collaborative piano on the music faculty in the School of Performing Arts.

Masters’ significant collaborations include concerts with baritone Donnie Ray Albert, flutist Valerie Coleman, mezzo-soprano Marta Senn, the late mezzo-soprano Barbara Conrad, and many others. He has appeared with former Boston Symphony principal trombonist Norman Bolter, former Juilliard String Quartet violinist Earl Carlyss, saxophonist Harvey Pittel, and under the baton of the late Lorin Maazel. Masters has performed solo, chamber, and vocal recitals throughout the United States and in Europe.

As a solo pianist, Masters plays a wide variety of standard and non-traditional repertoire, including contemporary pieces written for or commissioned by him. A strong proponent of contemporary American composers, he has performed world premieres of pieces by Kenneth Frazelle, Charles Nichols, Kent Holliday, and many others. He is an enthusiastic performer of British music from the early 20th century, focusing in particular on the solo piano music of John Ireland. The critic John France wrote on MusicWeb International “Richard Masters approaches [John Ireland's Piano Sonata] with great style and understanding: all the facets of Ireland’s art are present here: ‘…the lyrical, the dramatic, the extrovert and the melancholy — the intense self-questioning and the open, almost naïve, avowals.’”

In addition to his performances as a pianist, Masters is active in the world of opera and musical theatre as a coach and conductor. 

Masters is a Yamaha Artist. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder, a master’s degree from The Juilliard School, and a doctorate from the Eastman School of Music.

Visitors to the Blacksburg campus Monday - Friday, 7 a.m. - 10 p.m. will need to display a parking permit, utilize the ParkMobile app, pay the daily charge for a pass, or pay for parking using an hourly meter. A range of parking options can be found here.

If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, please contact Susan Sanders at susansan@vt.edu prior to the event.

We are grateful to Main Street Inn and The Inn at Virginia Tech, the hotel sponsors for the Music on Mondays and Visiting Artist Series in the School of Performing Arts at Virginia Tech.