Virtuoso Pianist to Perform at Halftime

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - When the Utah State and Arkansas football teams leave the field during halftime of the Sept. 9 game, pianist Jura Margulis will enter the stadium to play a rendition of “The Stars and Stripes Forever” that is so difficult only a handful of pianists in the world are able to perform it.

Margulis, associate professor of music in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, has performed throughout Europe, the United States, Russia, Canada, South America and Japan. Added to his performing venues now are the Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium and the Bud Walton Arena.

The Washington Post has described Margulis as possessing “titanic reserves of technique and sheer power” and demonstrating “effortless spontaneity.”

He has won prizes in more than a dozen international competitions and is a recipient of the esteemed “Pro Europa” prize awarded by the European Foundation for Culture. He has performed with the Russian National Orchestra in the Hollywood Bowl and with the Montreal Symphony under Charles Dutoit. He recorded six CDs for the Sony, OEHMS Classics and Ars Musici labels.

Before joining the music faculty at the University of Arkansas in 1999, he studied with his father, Vitaly Margulis, at the Freiburg Musikhochschule and with Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. He was also a student at the prestigious Fondazione per il Pianoforte in Cadenabbia at Lake Como in Italy.

Margulis performed “Stars and Stripes” during the December 2005 Arkansas-Texas State University basketball game. After that performance, two students and faculty members from Fulbright College joined him and were introduced. During the upcoming game, a special video highlighting college achievements will air on the Smartvision screen before Margulis’s performance.

“The Fulbright College is an excellent, nationally competitive institution of research and learning. I wanted to find a way to showcase our outstanding faculty and students in the context of a large sports event. Being a faculty member and performing the Stars and Stripes in the Horowitz transcription on a concert grand piano seemed a creative way to link the academic and athletic aspects of our university,” said Margulis.