A guest performance by celebrated pianist, Laura Spitzer, kicked off Sacrament State’s first all-women Piano Series Sunday.

Spitzer completed her undergraduate studies at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, where she was awarded the Boesendorfer Stipend.

After graduating she toured with the Austrian Ensemble for New Music, recorded numerous programs for Austrian Radio and took first prize at the Kurt Leimer Competition.

Spitzer later earned a Master’s Degree with Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Institute. She has been the recipient of four touring grants from the Nevada State Council on the Arts and the Nevada Humanities Committee.

Spitzer, who currently heads the piano department of New Mexico State University, became involved in the Piano Series when Sac State’s associate professor of piano, Richard Cionco performed what Spitzer called a “very successful recital” during a concert exchange in Las Cruces where she lives and teaches.

Cionco, who first heard of Spitzer as a student at Juilliard, calls her: innovative, community oriented, engaging and exciting.Known for traveling around with her Steinway piano in the back of a truck, Spitzer travels to urban and rural areas to perform classical concerts. “She creates a concert for the people of a community who wouldn’t be exposed to this music otherwise,” said Cionco. Spitzer began the performance with a short titled “Romance” by Clara Schumann, and followed up with Robert Schumann’s large-scale piece “Fantasy in C Major.”

According to Spitzer, the two composers were in love but had to fight Clara’s father in court in order to be married. Robert wrote “Fantasy” when he believed he had given her up.

In the second half Spitzer played Gershwin’s classic “Rhapsody in Blue,” three novelettes by Francis Poulenc and two short consolations by Franz Liszt.

This years event, the first all women Piano Series in the series’ nine-year history, was unique and exciting and featured renowned women pianists as well as works by women composers.

“This is really for the benefit of the students and the community,” says Cionco. “The ticket prices are very low, it would cost you $20-50 to see a show like this in San Francisco.”