Logan Skelton, Sean Duggan, Mi-Eun Kim

Program

George Gershwin (arr. Logan Skelton)
Four Gershwin Songs
Stairway to Paradise
Oh, Lady Be Good
Someone to Watch Over Me
Strike Up the Band

Piano 1 – Logan Skelton
Piano 2 – Sean Duggan

George Gershwin (arr. Percy Grainger)
Fantasy on Porgy and Bess

Piano 1 – Sean Duggan
Piano 2 – Logan Skelton

*** Intermission ***

George Gershwin (arr. Logan Skelton)
Four Gershwin Songs
I Got Rhythm
Somebody Loves Me
But Not for Me
My One and Only

Piano 1 – Logan Skelton
Piano 2 – Mi-Eun Kim

George Gershwin (arr. Logan Skelton)
An American In Paris

Piano 1 – Sean Duggan
Piano 2 – Logan Skelton

This presentation of Gershwin arrangements is given in collaboration with the George and Ira Gershwin Critical Edition.

Logan Skelton

Logan Skelton is a much sought-after pianist, teacher and composer whose work has received international critical acclaim. As a performer, Skelton is active in the United States, Europe and Asia and has been featured on many public radio and television stations as well as on radio in China and national television in Romania. He has recorded discs for Centaur, Albany, Crystal, Blue Griffin, Equilibrium, Supertrain, and Naxos Records, several times in collaborations with fellow composer-pianist, William Bolcom. He is a frequent international competition juror and popular presenter at music teacher organizations and summer festivals including numerous appearances at MTNA national conventions and EPTA World Piano Conferences, as well as serving as Convention Artist for many state conventions. As a composer, Skelton has a special affinity for art song, having composed almost 200 songs including 16 song cycles. In addition to his own composition, Skelton has creatively reimagined various works of Liszt, Mozart, Chopin, and Bartók, a number of which are published by Muse Press. He has contributed substantially to the Gershwin complete edition, as well as made arrangements of An American in Paris and numerous Gershwin songs, soon to be published by Schott Music. A devoted teacher himself, Skelton has been repeatedly honored by the University of Michigan including the Thurnau professorship, among the highest honors awarded by the university. Over many years, Skelton’s own piano students have repeatedly won awards in national and international competitions and hold positions of prominence in music schools and conservatories throughout the world. He has served on the faculties of Manhattan School of Music, Missouri State University, and is currently Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, Director of Doctoral Studies in Piano Performance, and the Artur Schnabel Collegiate Professor of Music in Piano at the University of Michigan.

Sean Duggan

Fr. Sean Brett Duggan is Professor of Piano and head of the piano area, at SUNY Fredonia. Previously he served on the piano faculty at the University of Michigan and as guest professor at the Eastman School of Music. A Benedictine monk and priest at St. Joseph Abbey in Louisiana, Duggan taught, music, Latin and theology at St. Joseph Seminary College and was organist and director of music at St. Joseph Abbey. He won first prize on two separate occasions in the Johann Sebastian Bach International Competition in Washington, DC. In 2000 he performed the complete cycle of Bach’s keyboard (piano) works numerous times in various American and European cities. During that year he was featured on a special program on NPR’s “Performance Today” hosted by Fred Child entitled “Stump the Monk” in which Child called out the name of any Bach keyboard piece and had him play it. Presently he is in the final stages of recording the complete cycle of Bach’s keyboard works which will comprise 25 CDs. He has performed concertos with the Buffalo Philharmonic, Louisiana Philharmonic, New Mexico Philharmonic, Leipzig Baroque Soloists, Prague Chamber Orchestra, American Chamber Orchestra, Worcester Symphony, and the Pennsylvania Sinfonia. He has been adjudicator at the Gina Bachauer and New Orleans International competitions and has served on the faculty of the Golandsky Institute, Atlantic Music Festival, and the Chautauqua Institution. He continues to study the Taubman Approach with Edna Golandsky in New York City.

Mi-Eun Kim

Praised for her “exquisite refinement” and “vast interpretative range” (The Boston Musical Intelligencer), Korean-American pianist Mi-Eun Kim has performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. 2025 season highlights include performances of George Gershwin’s Concerto in F with Boston Pops and the MIT Symphony Orchestra, drawn from the University of Michigan Gershwin Initiative’s new critical edition in celebration of the work’s centennial. A prizewinner at the Liszt–Garrison International Piano Competition, the Corpus Christi International Competition for Piano & Strings, and YoungArts, she has appeared at festivals including Piano Summer at New Paltz, Art of the Piano, PianoTexas, and the Gilmore Keyboard Festival. Mi-Eun is a teaching faculty at Brown University and Director of Keyboard Studies at MIT, where she oversees the Emerson/Harris Program for Private Study. She co-leads Biomechanics of Piano Playing, an interdisciplinary research initiative at MIT.nano’s Immersion Lab supported by the MIT Human Insight Collaborative and has presented this work at the Royal College of Music, the MTNA National Conference, and the International Symposium on Performance Science in Shanghai. She holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Columbia University and has studied with Logan Skelton, Christopher Harding, Richard Cass, Seymour Lipkin, Stanislav Ioudenitch, and Yong-Hi Moon. Each summer she is on faculty at Center Stage Strings and directs the Hansong Summer Music Festival in South Korea.