CANCELED

Pianist Cecil Lytle to Perform
for Preuss, with Ludwig
Jan. 25 to Benefit the
Lytle Scholarship Fund at UCSD

January 6, 2008

By Jan Jennings

A tribute to Ludwig van Beethoven and a celebration of the 10th anniversary of The Preuss School at the University of California, San Diego, will be presented Jan. 25 when pianist Cecil Lytle performs for Preuss, with Ludwig at the Ida and Cecil Green Faculty Club on the UC San Diego campus. The Preuss School was recently ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of the top 10 high schools in America.

Cecil Lytle

The 3 p.m. concert is open to the public and will benefit the Rebecca E. Lytle Memorial Scholarship Fund at UC San Diego’s Thurgood Marshall College. This is Lytle’s 14th annual concert to benefit the fund which provides need-based scholarships to a select group of first year students enrolled in Thurgood Marshall College. Since 2004, the REL scholarships have been awarded to graduates of The Preuss School whose college destination is Thurgood Marshall College. The Preuss School is a middle and high school dedicated to providing intensive college preparatory education for motivated students from low income families who will become the first in their families to attend college.

Lytle will play Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in B flat Major, Opus 106 (Grosse Sonata fur Das Hammerklavier, 1818) and Piano Sonata in C Minor, Opus 111 (1822).

According to Lytle, there is a correlation between these groundbreaking works by Beethoven and the innovative, “ahead-of-its-time” concept of The Preuss School that “blends the best practices of public education with the research, service and teaching of a major public research university.”

First, Lytle will perform Das Hammerklavier, the longest of Beethoven’s piano sonatas with four movements, as opposed to the traditional three.

“This sonata is a gnarly stroke of genius that helps to culminate the rise of the sonata from the 17th century and into the 19th,” says Lytle. “The work builds on the foundations of sonata writing by Franz Josef Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, yet it goes beyond their aspirations in scope and length.”

Lytle draws further comparison between the Viennese master and The Preuss School: “Where Beethoven was breaking the mold to create opportunities for the innovative composers who were to follow, The Preuss School brings together the best practices of educational reform and provides a test bed for the future.”

Following an intermission, at which desserts will be served, the musician and retired UC San Diego music professor and Thurgood Marshall College provost, will perform Piano Sonata in C Minor, Opus 111.

“It is not only the last of the master’s 32 piano sonatas, it is the last work of any kind to bear the appellation, sonata,” Lytle says. “This work embodies Beethoven’s last thoughts on the future of music and led Franz Liszt and other 19th century composers to craft their own innovative contributions.”

Lytle is an award-winning artist who has appeared in concert in the United States, Europe and Asia since 1968. An expert in the performance of 19th and early 20th century music, he has taught UC San Diego courses in classical music and black music history. In addition to his teaching and concert career, Lytle is a recording artist, has performed on television and radio, and was nominated for an Emmy award for his performance/lecture series, The Nature of Genius, on public television.

The Rebecca E. Lytle Memorial Scholarship Fund was endowed in 1995, in honor of Lytle’s late wife, to support and encourage first year students enrolled in UCSD’s Thurgood Marshall College.

Tickets for the 14th annual Lytle Memorial Scholarship Concert are $40 of which $27 is tax deductible. Reserved tables are available. For tickets and further information call (858) 534-1507 or e-mail rels@ucsd.edu.

Media Contact: Jan Jennings, 858-822-1684