USMC Keyboardist to Perform with Winners of Southern Maryland Piano Competition
LA PLATA, Md. (April 21, 2010)—The 2nd Annual Southern Maryland Regional Piano Competition at the College of Southern Maryland's Prince Frederick Campus April 24-25 will provide area high school pianists with a rare opportunity to share the stage with a member of the President's Own U.S. Marine Band. Gunnery Sergeant Russell Wilson, 29, of College Park, is a pianist who also plays keyboard, harpsichord and accordion in public performances around the Washington, D.C. area with the concert band, the string orchestra and small chamber groups as well as solo background music at the White House.
With a bachelor's degree in classical piano and a master's degree in jazz, Wilson will be performing in a slightly different genre at CSM when he performs James P. Johnson's "Arkansas Blues," with its jazzy-ragtime beat.
Wilson , 29, who grew up in Clinton, Md., and attended Surrattsville High School, began playing piano in second grade. He entered solo and duet competitions in middle school but didn't begin to win solo competitions until he was in high school. While a junior at the University of Maryland, Wilson won a place as a pianist in the President's Own.
Wilson and the Southern Maryland Regional Piano Competition winners will perform for the public beginning at 2 p.m., Sunday, April 25, at CSM's Prince Frederick Campus, 115 J.W. Williams Road, Prince Frederick. The concert is free. For more information, visit www.csmd.edu/SoMdPianoCompetition/.