The Fresno City College music department presented a lecture recital about a famous piano and its prolific owner.

The Steinway piano, owned by Vladimir Horowitz, a Russian piano virtuoso and composer, was given to him in 1940, used during his concerts in the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s, and was the only piano he would use.

Horowitz died on Nov. 5, 1989; however, his instrument continued to tour the world. It recently came to the FCC campus.

“I think it’s such a treat to have the piano here and to share it with students,” said piano instructor Brandon Bascom. “It’s potentially a once-in-a -lifetime experience.”

Bascom presented an interactive lecture to the audience which included videos, and provided  facts about who Horowitz was and facts about the piano.

Between sections of the lecture, Bascom and his student, Julia Jacobsen, performed select works that Horowitz performed on the piano.

“I’ve heard about this piano for years and years and years,” said Jacobsen. “I never thought that I would actually be able to play it.”

Jacobsen started off the recital by performing a piece by Frédéric Chopin, a composer whose music Horowitz frequently performed. This was then followed by a few performances by Bascom

One of the pieces performed by Bascom was Robert Schumann’s “Träumerei,” a piece Horowitz performed during his concert in Moscow in 1986. Horowitz’s Moscow concert was broadcasted on television all over the world and covered by news stations such as CBS, as shown in a video during the lecture.

Some of the videos shown displayed Horowitz’s eccentric personality and the mass popularity he had around the world. In one of the clips of his Moscow concert, some of the attendees described waiting for hours just to be able to see him perform. Another explained how his piano had a “light touch” and played without much pressure.

The combination of the five performances, lecture and video clips helped audience members paint a better idea about who Horowitz was.

“I didn’t come expecting to learn a lot about Horowitz by watching videos and seeing his personality on the screen,” said Brittany White, a second year music composition major at FCC.

“So that was really cool to come and be able to see that.”

After the lecture and performances, audience members were able to come on stage and play the piano. Attendees were also encouraged to take photos of the piano, specifically pictures of under the piano, where graffiti has accumulated throughout the years the instrument’ toured.

“It was really fun at the end when people were going up to the piano,” said Red Wilson, an accounting major at FCC. “It felt like an open mic, watching people feeling the piano and playing it.”

The proceeds from the recital will benefit FCC’s All-Steinway School Initiative. The initiative will replace the older pianos on campus with new Steinway instruments.

The next FCC music department event will be the Jazz Composers Orchestra on Oct. 3 at the California State University Fresno concert hall. The next piano recital will be the Intermediate/Advanced Piano Recital on Dec. 5 in the Old Administration Building auditorium.