On Aug. 5, the free admission Glendale Noon Concerts will feature pianist James Lent performing a program celebrating the 250th anniversary of America with works by Joplin, Copland, Barber, Mancini and Gershwin.

Among the pieces he will perform are “Maple Leaf Rag” by Scott Joplin, “No. 3 from Four Piano Blues” by Aaron Copland, “Bumbleboogie” by Jack Fina, “Prelude No. 1” by  George Gershwin, “Fugue from Piano Sonata, Op. 26” by Samuel Barber, “Variations on the Pink Panther” by Lent and Mancini and “Rhapsody in Blue” by George Gershwin.

Pianist James Lent is a lecturer and coordinator of collaborative piano at UCLA. Lent completed his DMA at the Yale School of Music under teachers Boris Berman, Claude Frank and Peter Frankl. He made his Alabama Symphony debut to critical acclaim performing Rachmaninoff’s “Concerto No. 2” on 24 hours notice to replace Andre Watts. He has also performed with the Torrance Symphony, Vancouver Symphony and the Houston Symphony, among others, and as solo recitalist at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany, for the National Chopin Foundation in Miami, at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where he premiered a new work written for him by American composer Frederic Rzewski.

His numerous awards include prizes in the New York Concert Artists Guild International Competition, the National Chopin Competition, the Washington International Piano Competition at the Kennedy Center, among others. He was a fellowship recipient at the Aspen Music Festival, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Sarasota Music Festival and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal. Lent also teaches at AMDA (American Musical and Dramatic Academy) as collaborative pianist, vocal coach and musical director.

Glendale Noon Concerts is celebrating its 18th year of presenting free admission concerts every first and third Wednesday for Glendale and the Southland community. Concerts are performed at 610 E. California Ave. in Glendale. 

Upcoming concerts will be updated at http://glendalenoonconcerts.blogspot.com.