John MortensenJohn Mortensen

Guest pianist John Mortensen will perform at Hope College on Saturday, Oct. 17, at 7:30 p.m. in the John and Dede Howard Recital Hall of the Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts.

The public is invited. Admission is free.

Mortensen has a broad career as a performer and teacher of classical and jazz piano. His concerts often begin with masterpieces of the classical repertoire before venturing into jazz improvisation or his original compositions. He appears frequently as concert artist and master class teacher at colleges and universities nationwide.

He also performs and teaches Irish and American roots music, playing mandolin, octave mandolin, Irish flute, Irish button accordion, five-string banjo, Uilleann pipes and Irish whistle. He created America’s only college-level traditional Irish music session class.

After his concert in Eisk, Russian Federation, the Russian press wrote that “for John Mortensen, Russia has always been close musically. He plays with especial passion the works of Sergei Rachmaninoff….”

Mortensen, who is a professor of piano at Cedarville University in Ohio, studied with Lynne Bartholomew at the University of Michigan and Anne Koscielny and Raymond Hanson at the University of Maryland, receiving his doctorate in piano performance from the latter.  He holds National Certification in Piano through the Music Teachers National Association, and is endorsed as an Ohio Artist on Tour through the Ohio Arts Council. The Fulbright Specialist program of the U.S. Department of State sponsors him to perform and teach at universities internationally.

The Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts is located at 221 Columbia Ave., between Ninth and 10th streets.