Steven Harlos, professor of music and coordinator of piano, traveled to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in April to give the world premiere performance of Dysfunctional with the UNC Symphony Orchestra, directed by Tonu Kalam.
The piano concerto, commissioned by the Barlow Endowment, was written for Harlos by composer-pianist Stephen Anderson (’00 M.M., ’05 D.M.A.), assistant professor of jazz studies and composition at UNC and a recording artist for Summit Records.
Anderson says although Harlos was not one of his professors at UNT, he enjoyed hearing him play with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, where Harlos is the keyboardist. The two decided to collaborate a few years ago.
“He is known as a wonderful classical pianist who improvises and also plays jazz extremely well,” Anderson says. “I received all of my degrees in classical composition, yet played piano in the jazz bands all along, so we both share a love of classical music and jazz.”
Anderson’s 2008 Forget Not jazz trio CD, recorded with fellow One O’Clock Lab Band alumni Jeffry Eckels and Joel Fountain (’02), has aired on jazz radio internationally. His latest CD, Nation Degen­eration, with Eckels and Ross Pederson (’08), was released in May.