Students showcase piano skills by tickling the ivories

Ryan Peterson, 10, of Barrington juggles everything from his saxophone lessons and Cub Scout meetings to student council sessions and intramurals. And that's all before basketball season gets under way.

One thing he always finds time for, however, is playing the piano.

The fifth-grader will be among 400 students featured from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday in the 14th annual Festival of Pianos at Randhurst Shopping Center in Mount Prospect.

They will perform a series of duets on six Yamaha grand pianos, positioned in the mall's grand court area. Marilyn Crosland, a piano teacher in Buffalo Grove, will conduct the six pianos, as she has done nearly every year since the festival began.

"It's wonderful that the children get to share their talent," Crosland said. "For some of them, it's the only time they will play in an ensemble."

Pairs of pianists include siblings playing together, as well as students with their parents or teachers, and even friends.

In Peterson's case, he will join his grandmother, Arlene Ridgway of Elgin, for a rendition of Scott Joplin's "Easy Winners," before playing the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby," and Pachelbel's "Canon," with his friend, Tyler Shadrick, 10, of Lake Zurich.

The two pals also will combine on their favorite piece, the Hebrew folk song, "Hava Nagila."

"It's really fast and just fun to play," Peterson says.

Other pieces featured in the unique concert run the gamut. For beginners, they include the familiar ones, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," and "This Land is Your Land."

But others range from patriotic marches and light classical pieces, to Irish folk melodies, and Disney theme songs.

Members of the Northwest Suburban Music Teachers Association mount the festival each year, but this year it is bittersweet. It appears this is their last concert at Randhurst before the mall undergoes its renovation.

At the same time they are working to pull off the concert, featuring so many of the young musicians, they also are scouring the area for another venue.

"We could hold it in a theater, but then we'd have to charge for tickets, and then just their families would come," says Maureen Flood, a piano teacher in Barrington who is organizing the concert.

Instead, she says, they liken the free festival as something like public art, exposing people from all walks of life to the beauty of the duets, and the young musicians making the music. That's another reason they're looking for a shopping center and not a theater for a new venue.

"We don't want to make it another recital for the children," Crosland says. "We think the setting makes it unique and non-threatening for the children, and to the best of our knowledge it's the only one of its kind in the area."

The pianists get as much out of the performance opportunity as their audience, Flood says.

"Piano playing can be such a solitary activity," she says. "At this event, it's almost like a tournament, where our students get to see all these other students who practice as much as they do."

If you go

What: 14th annual Festival of Pianos

When: Noon to 5 p.m. Sunday

Where: Steve & Barry court at Randhurst Shopping Center, 999 N. Elmhurst Road in Mount Prospect

Cost: Free

Web: www.nwsmta.org