January 6, 2004

A Piano Recital Of Hymns Will Be Presented By
Cecil Lytle In A Benefit Concert Jan. 25 At UCSD

By Jan Jennings

Hymns, a piano recital of works by Franz Liszt and George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, will be presented by University of California, San Diego musician Cecil Lytle at 3 p.m. Jan. 25 in the Ida and Cecil Green Faculty Club on the UCSD campus.

Proceeds from the event will go to the Rebecca Lytle Memorial Scholarship at UCSD’s Thurgood Marshall College.

Lytle has presented benefit musical programs featuring specifically designed repertoire for the past eight years. “This January 2004, the scholarship program features composed classical music of a religious nature,” Lytle says. “Hence, Hymns.”

The program will include late religious piano music by Liszt, Harmonie Poetiques et Religieuses, and Gurdjieff, Sufi Hymns and Sacred Hymns.
Lytle is an award-winning artist, a “versatile virtuoso” who has been appearing 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 UCSD 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.

Lytle returned to the UCSD campus this year after serving two years as director of the UC Study Centre-Bloomsbury Office in the United Kingdom Program, a part of the University of California Education Abroad Program (EAP). Lytle has resumed his duties as provost of UCSD’s Thurgood Marshall College, which is presenting the Rebecca Lytle Memorial Scholarship Concert in conjunction with the UCSD Faculty Club.

Last year Lytle was sidelined with a shoulder injury, awaiting surgery, and Charles Curtis, cellist, and Aleck Karis, pianist, musicians in UCSD’s Department of Music, performed for the Rebecca Lytle Memorial Scholarship Concert. Previous Lytle scholarship concerts include Franz Schubert: An All-Schubert Piano Recital in 2002; 2001 – A Ragtime Odyssey, featuring Lytle on piano with guests musicians on bass, banjo, drums and violin; an All-Liszt Piano Recital in 2000; 100 Years of Ellington featuring jazz and blues singer Barbara Morrison, Cecil Lytle and special music guests in 1999; an All-Chopin Piano Recital in 1998; Gershwin at 99 in 1997, and an All-Beethoven Piano Recital in 1996. Past recitals by Lytle are available for viewing on UCSD-TV.

The Rebecca Lytle Memorial Scholarship Fund was established in 1995 to support and encourage a select group of first year students enrolled in UCSD’s Thurgood Marshall College who are the first in their family to attend college.

This is the ninth annual Rebecca Lytle Memorial Scholarship Concert. Tickets for the concert, at which hors d’oeuvres will be served during intermission, are $35. For tickets and further information call the UCSD Faculty Club at (858) 534-0876 or visit the website at rels.ucsd.edu.

Media Contact: Jan Jennings (858) 822-1684, or jnjennings@ucsd.edu