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The Longwood University Department of Music will present a piano recital by James Kidd on Sunday, Nov. 19. Free and open to the public, the concert will take place in the Molnar Recital Hall of Wygal Music Building at 4 p.m., with doors open at 3:30 p.m. Parking for the event is available along Race Street, beside Greenwood Library and Bedford Hall.

James Kidd is the Barger Professor Emeritus of Music at Hampden-Sydney College, where in 1981 he was a founding member of the Fine Arts Department. Soon after, he co-founded the annual Hampden-Sydney Music Festival, and served as its pianist and executive director until his retirement in 2007.

Professor Kidd’s career has long combined scholarship and performance. He studied piano with Gui Mombaerts Northwestern University, and earned a doctorate at the University of Chicago under the guidance of Leonard Meyer, Grosvenor Cooper, and Ralph Shapey.

For nearly a decade, Professor Kidd was pianist in the Delaware Trio and for twenty-two years performed as pianist in the Buffet Trio of Philadelphia. His study of the music of Béla Bartók led to much time in Hungary, including a sabbatical year. He has published on wit and humor in Beethoven, as well as on various aspects of the music of Bartók, Gabriel Fauré, and Hindemith.

The piano recital at Longwood will feature the music of Ludwig van Beethoven, including an early sonata (No. 1, Op. 2, of 1795) and a very late one (No. 31, Op. 110, of 1821), which in combination will frame a set of seven short Bagatelles (Op. 33, of 1802).

For more information about this concert, access to it, or to become a Patron of Music at Longwood call the Longwood University Department of Music at 434-395-2504.