Simmons performs at Community Concert

Jade Simmons Kilgore Community Concert Association will present pianist Jade Simmons, known for her unique blend of musical creativity and electrifying stage presence, in concert at Dodson Auditorium in Kilgore at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 13.

Though her affinity is for the rhythmic and percussive repertoire of 20th and 21st century composers, her concerts feature a blend of the classics and the cutting-edge sound of contemporary composers.

A native of South Carolina, she did her undergraduate work at Northwestern University and received a Master of Piano Performance degree from Rice University's Shepherd School of Music under the tutelage of pianist Jon Kimura Parker. She also is pursuing the International Certificate for Piano Artists from the Foundation Bell'Arte in Brussels.

As the first ever New Music/New Places Fellow, Simmons has created innovative projects and presented them in a variety of venues, including the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, broadcasts on PBS and National Public Radio affiliates, and at concerts in New York, Chicago, Barcelona, the Canary Islands, Paris, Greece and Italy.

An advocate for arts in education, Simmons has created a presentation entitled "Mozart on the Move" for elementary school students. In 2004, she launched a new concert series called "The Impulse Artist Series" for talented young pianists. She also speaks on topics of social concern as founder of the Where Do you Stand? speaker series and has spoken on topics ranging from the arts to youth suicide prevention on radio and television stations. Her first media venture was Key Moments, a radio show devoted to the music of the piano and the lives of the artists who perform it.

Simmons was Miss Illinois and first runnerup in the Miss America pageant in 2000. In the Miss America competition she performed Chopin's Etude in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 10 No. 4 live and before a television audience of millions.

She designs her own concert attire and plans to expand her successful fashion designs into a commercial line.

Admittance to the Kilgore concert is by membership in the Kilgore Community Concert Association or other East Texas associations which have reciprocal privileges with the Kilgore organization. No individual tickets will be sold.