Pianist to Deliver Rousing Rendition of Stars and Stripes Forever

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Jura Margulis performs Stars and Stripes Forever during the Sept. 9, 2006 Utah State-Arkansas football game.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Jura Margulis will take center stage during halftime of the Oct. 10 Auburn-Arkansas football game to play Stars and Stripes Forever, offering a rendition by V. Horowitz so difficult to play it is jokingly referred to as a piece for three hands.

After Margulis, Matt Shanklin of University of Arkansas athletics and Bryan Elmore of Saied Music in Tulsa considered several options for moving the grand piano onto the field — including trucks and forklifts — they settled on sheer manpower instead.

“In an athletic undertaking that surely rivals a 100-yard pass, a group of about a dozen men, comprised largely of Marines, will run the grand piano out and back. Their path has been carefully planned so they don’t collide with any cheerleaders or marching drummers or other parts of the halftime entertainment,” said Margulis, the McAllister Professor of Piano in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

Margulis has performed the march twice before, during the 2006 Utah State-Arkansas football game and the 2005 Arkansas-Texas State University basketball game.

“People seemed to enjoy the juxtaposition of a nine-foot grand and a nine-foot hog. Plus, everybody loves Sousa,” Margulis recalls.

Margulis, who enjoys sharing his love of the piano with audiences in a variety of venues, has performed with the Russian National Orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under Charles Dutoit, the Südwestrundfunk Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Venezuela and the Prague Symphony Orchestra. Margulis' solo appearances include recitals at the Beppu Music Festival in Japan, the Berliner Festwochen, and the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, as well as recent performances in New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, New Orleans and Los Angeles, as well as abroad in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Berlin, all in Germany; Salzburg, Austria; Barcelona, Spain; Bangkok, Thailand; Lugano Italy, and Sapporo, Japan.

He has been recognized for his compellingly communicative performances, as well as for the range of his tonal palette and his consummate virtuosity. Reviewers from the Los Angeles Times to the Washington Post and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung have praised his artistry, noting the “absolute authority” of his interpretations and the sense of “controlled obsession” he transmits at the keyboard.

He has recorded seven CDs for the Sony, Ars Musici and Oehms Classics labels. Margulis regularly gives piano master classes in the U.S. and abroad, including courses in Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, Austria, Russia and Japan.