Recital to benefit Peyton Richmond Russo scholarship at UVa-Wise

Pianist Eugenie Russo will perform a benefit recital at The University of Virginia’s College at Wise to establish a scholarship in honor of her mother and local artist Peyton Richmond Russo. Russo will perform in the Chapel of All Faiths on Oct. 2 at 7:30 p.m.

Peyton Russo, an acclaimed St. Paul-based artist, poet and photographer, is the creator of chemography, an art medium in which the artist brushes development chemicals onto sensitized photographic paper in a dark room. She has donated most of her artwork in the medium to UVa-Wise. 

The scholarship will be established to recognize talented and promising writers, artists, photographers or dancers and thus aid students who have demonstrated excellence in the creative and performing arts.

The benefit recital is co-sponsored by the Pro-Art Association.

On Wednesday, Oct. 3, Eugenie Russo also will give a lecture entitled “Ex-patriot Experience: Being an American in Austria,” regarding perceptions of Americans in Europe. The lecture will begin at 1 p.m.  in the Rhododendron Room on the fifth floor of the C. Bascom Slemp Center. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Eugenie Russo studied piano at Oberlin Conservatory and in Vienna before receiving her diploma in piano performance at what is now the University of Music in Vienna. She has performed extensively as a soloist throughout Europe, Asia and the United States. In 1986 she made a successful debut at the Carnegie Recital Hall in New York. Eugenie is an artist in residence at various American colleges.

Since 1991, she has been head of the piano department at Josef Matthias Hauer Conservatory in Wiener Neustadt, Austria. She has been a professor at the annual Vienna International Pianists Summer Academy since 1997.

Posted Semptember 25, 2007