Joel Schoenhals, pianist and professor of piano at Eastern Michigan University, performed concert 2 of his Bach-Brahms project, Pease Auditorium, March 24.
Schoenhals’ Bach-Brahms project is a two-year, four-concert series that features the complete partitas of Johann Sebastian Bach and character pieces of Johannes Brahms. For concert 2, the wooden seats of Pease Auditorium were filled with students, faculty, and other music connoisseurs as they watched him perform.
“I really like how he is interpreting the Brahms,” said Paul Wilhelm, an EMU alumnus that has returned to study music. “Joel is very precise when he plays, he has a lot of expression without being rigid,” Wilhelm continued.
According to Floyd Schoenhals, Joel’s father, Joel’s decision to focus on music has paid off.
“His performance was beautiful,” said Floyd Schoenhals, “When he was a young boy he wasn’t a very good soccer player, at a certain point he gave up playing soccer and focused on music. He was very focused on doing that, he worked very hard at it and it has worked well for him.”
His parents are from Oklahoma, and don’t miss a show.
Currently the dates for concert 3 and 4 of Schoenhals' series are to be announced.
For information on future musical concerts at EMU visit emich.edu/musicdance