Jan 22, 2024

Jazz pianist Konrad Paszkudski will perform works from the Great American Songbook and other popular classics at 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 28, at St. Bonaventure University’s Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts.

It is the fifth presentation in the Friends of Good Music’s 2023-2024 performance season.

Titled “Concert for Marianne,” the concert is in honor of Olean native Marianne Laine in appreciation for her gift of a Steinway piano to the Quick Center. Along with her late husband, Erick Laine, former president and CEO of Cutco Corporation in Olean, Marianne Laine has been a longtime philanthropic supporter of the Quick Center and was the inaugural chair of the Quick Center Guild, a position she continues to hold.

Paszkudski will perform selections by Vernon Duke, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Errol Garner, and others.

Raised in western Australia by Polish parents, Paszkudski revealed his passion for American jazz early on. Admitted to the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts in Perth at the age of 15, he studied jazz piano and completed his undergraduate degree a few weeks after turning 19.

He swiftly established a reputation as a leading jazzman in Australia, touring and playing for two years with his mentor, jazz trumpeter James Morrison. He relocated to the United States in 2009 to accept a scholarship to attend the University of Miami, where he earned a master’s degree in 2011. In 2012 he was selected to lead the house trio at the coveted New York venue 54 Below.

Paszkudski joined the John Pizzarelli Quartet in November of 2013, leading to more than 1,000 performances worldwide in the following four years. In 2015 he became a Yamaha artist, and in 2016 began working for Venus Records in Japan. Between 2016-2017 the Konrad Paszkudzki trio recorded seven albums for the label. The trio performed at the Quick Center in 2022.

Aside from touring and recording, Paszkudski is artistic director of jazz at the Ballroom, a not-for-profit organization committed to delivering the highest caliber of swinging American jazz across the West Coast.

Single tickets for this concert are $20 at full price, $16 for senior citizens and St. Bonaventure employees, and $5 for students. For tickets and information, call The Quick Center at (716) 375-2494.

For each Friends of Good Music performance, The Quick Center will open its galleries one hour before the performance. Regular gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. 

Museum admission is free and open to the public year-round. For more information, visit http://www.sbu.edu/quickcenter.  

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About the University: The nation’s first Franciscan university, St. Bonaventure University is a community committed to transforming the lives of our students inside and outside the classroom, inspiring in them a lifelong commitment to service and citizenship. Out of 167 regional universities in the North, St. Bonaventure was ranked #6 for value and #14 for innovation by U.S. News and World Report (2024).