May 03, 2005 -

Ottawa, Canada -- Calgary pianist Lana Henchell, First Prize-winner of the 2004 Eckhardt-Grammatté Piano Competition, will perform in recital on the Aber Diamond Debut Series on Friday, May 6 at noon in the Foyer of the NAC as part of the Alberta Scene presented by EPCOR.  The 80-minute recital presented by the National Arts Centre and CBC Radio Two features music by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, as well as Canadian composer David McIntyre. It will be hosted by Eric Friesen and broadcast live-to-air on his CBC Radio Two programme Studio Sparks.

Admission is $3.00 with all proceeds going to the NAC Orchestra Bursary Trust Fund. Seating is available on a first come-first served basis. Additional donations to the Fund are greatly appreciated.

Lana Henchell will perform Bach’s Fantasy and Fugue, Beethoven’s Sonata No. 2 in A major, David McIntyre’s Butterflies and Bobcats and Chopin’s Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp minor.

Lana Henchell received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the University of Calgary, where she studied with Marilyn Engle under major scholarships.  She has played in masterclasses with Janina Fialkowska, Sergei Babayan, Georgy Sebok, Nikolai Demidenko, John Perry, Marc Durand, Dang Thai Son, Jean-Paul Sevilla, and Stéphane Lemelin; and during the 2003 Esther Honens Competition, with Ursula Oppens.

Winner of the 1994 Calgary Kiwanis Music Festival Rose Bowl and a first-round competitor in the 2000 Esther Honens Competition, she has also received second prizes in the Shean Piano Competition (Edmonton, 1998), the International Stepping Stone of the Canadian Music Competitions (Montreal, 1997), the Austrian-Canadian Society Mozart Competition (Calgary, 1996), the National Music Festival (Sackville, NB, 1996) and the Stravinsky Awards International Piano Competition (Champaign-Urbana, IL, 1993).

Both as soloist and accompanist, Lana has played many recitals in the Calgary area, and appeared with orchestras, performing concerti by Beethoven, Rachmaninov and Grieg. Most recently, Lana performed a fifteen-concert national tour which was a result of winning First Prize at the Eckhardt-Gramatté Piano Competition in May 2004.  The tour also took her to Montreal this past February to play with the Montreal Chamber Orchestra.

Lana currently teaches piano and theory, adjudicates, and accompanies both professional and student musicians in the Calgary area.

The Aber Diamond Debut Series showcases talented young musicians from Canada and around the world. The recitals take place in the Foyer of the NAC, and each is broadcast live-to-air across Canada on Eric Friesen’s new afternoon programme Studio Sparks on CBC Radio Two. On concert days, Eric Friesen will broadcast his full three-hour show from the NAC Foyer from 11:00 to 14:00, with the recital presented in the middle hour at noon. Listeners can tune in from noon to 15:00 to hear the recital at 13:00.

Alberta Scene is presented by EPCOR and supported by Major Sponsors TSX Venture Exchange, The Banff Centre, and National Arts Centre Friends - Alberta. Performance Sponsors are Enbridge, CIBC, Suncor Energy Inc. and Capital Health. Media sponsors include CBC Radio-Canada, the National Post, the Ottawa Citizen, LeDroit, the Edmonton Journal, the Calgary Herald, and Y1O1 FM. Supporting Sponsors include Edmonton Festival City, Galaxie, CD Warehouse, mymusic.ca, Holiday Inn, Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation and Big Rock Brewery.

Alberta Scene is grateful for support from the Government of Canada, the Government of Alberta, the Canada Council for the Arts, Western Economic Diversification Canada, and Foreign Affairs Canada.

For more information please contact:
Jane Morris, Communications Officer,
National Arts Centre Orchestra
(613) 947-7000, ext. 335
jmorris@nac-cna.ca

Jill LaForty,
CBC Radio National Music Producer
(613) 288-6461