One of Cranbrook’s accomplished musicians is returning home to give a recital. Jani Parsons, born here, is presenting “Music From the Heart” - a piano recital featuring the music of Beethoven, Shchedrin and Chopin.

The recital will take place at the Cranbrook Knox Presbyterian Church (at Victoria and Third Street) on Thursday, July 29 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $8 for students and seniors and $10 general admission and will be available at the door.

Parsons is an active recitalist and has established herself throughout western Canada and into the United States as a sensitive pianist whose performances are noted for their warmth, personality and vivid expression.

She has taken prizes in the Vancouver Women’s Musical Society Competition and the Ann Arbor Society of Musical Arts Competition and was awarded a scholarship and medallion from the Alberta Registered Music Teachers Association. She has been featured on CBC Radio 2 as a semi-finalist of the E-gré National Music Competition and has performed at the Chan Centre for the Arts in Vancouver.

Born into a musical family, Parsons began her piano studies at age five and made her orchestral debut with the Symphony of the Kootenays at ag 16. She returned in 2004 to perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Symphony under the baton of Bruce Dunn.

She holds an ARCT diploma in Piano Performance with distinction from the Royal Conservatory of Music. She earned a Bacheor of Music degree in 2008 from the Vancouver Academy of Music S.K. Lee College. Parsons recently received a Masters of Music degree from the University of Michigan School of Music Theater and Dance and will continue on full scholarship into the Doctor of Musical Arts program.

She has studied under Allen Reiser, Lorraine Ambrose and world-renowned pianist, Arthur Greene. She has also studied with Marc Durand at the Banff Centre for the Arts summer festival and has had master classes with artists such as Jon Kimura Parker, Lee Kum Sing, Sara Davis Buechner and Volodymr Vynnytsky, to name a few.

At the recital on July 29th Parsons will be playing Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 90 in E minor, Debussy’s Image Book 1, selections from Shchedrin’s Op. 20, and Nocturne in B major, Op. 32 No.1 and Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58 by Chopin.