Their piano improvisation concert will be presented in Juliet J. Rosch Recital Hall on Thursday at 8 p.m. The improvisation workshop, which is in conjunction with the campus Improv Collective, will be staged in Mason Hall Room 1080 on Friday from 4 to 5:50 p.m. Both the concert and workshop are free and open to the public. Pazour will also work with students on improvisation in music classes.

“Anyone who loves improvised music, and is looking to learn more about self-expression should come check out Professor Pazour,” said Park-Rose. “His visit will be a precious gift to the community at Fredonia.” Pazour’s visit is sponsored by the Student Association through the Improv Collective.

Composition, concert and pedagogy are at the heart of Pazour’s orchestral, chamber and solo competitions regularly broadcast on Czech radio, published on audio media and are in the regular repertoire of top Czech and foreign soloists and ensembles. He teaches a sheet music and piano improvisation course at the Prague Conservatory.

Pazour won first prize in the composition competition Tribune of Chamber Music Pilsen for a song cycle for soprano and piano, for the lyrics of folk poetry, in “The Sun Darkened for Me.” The American premiere of his “Awakening of the Pearls,” composed for violin, French horn and piano, was performed in the Chamber Soloist of Detroit series.

Jiri Pazour

Many of his children’s songs are regularly broadcast on Czech television. Pazour also creates stage and stage music intervening in various genres and also collaborates with important theater and radio directors. His solo concert activity primarily focuses on piano improvisation.

Pazour has performed in Germany, Poland, Slovakia, France, England, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Malta, Greece, western Australia, the United States, South Korea and Japan. For nearly 10 years, he has been involved in music therapy courses for the targeted use of sound and music for therapeutic purposes.

In 2017, he recorded a joint CD in the United States with Park-Rose, who has been deeply involved with improv and has participated in the Music for People workshop for many years under the tutelage of GRAMMY winner David Darling. She has been highly engaged with the improv scene in Western New York and elsewhere, and has been involved with the Improv Collective and as a soloist.

A general music teacher and chorus director at Sinclairville (NY) Elementary School, Park-Rose has won numerous competitions and awards, including most recently a full scholarship to the Golandsky Summer Institute at Princeton University, where she studied the Taubman approach to the piano. As a pianist, she has appeared with the Canadian Chamber Ensemble and also on CBC television. Her music has been performed and recorded by artists in Canada, the U.S. and Europe.

Park-Rose has an M.M. in Performance in piano and a Mus.B. in Music Education, both from SUNY Fredonia, and also a bachelor’s degree in Composition from Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada. She is currently teaching a class in Free Improvisation to SUNY Fredonia students.

Free improvisation is one of her greatest passions.

Park-Rose has published music for solo viola through the American Viola Society and has toured Europe with Pazour, playing improvised music for two pianos – a rare passion for them which led to their CD recording “Bridge Across the Ocean.”