Free Piano Concert - Althea Waites: A Musical Celebration

Free and open to the public. We have seen Althea Waites play, and she is wonderful. She sold out the Nimoy Theater in 2024. Come hear her for free!

Date: Sunday, September 14, 2025, 4:00pm

Venue: Gerald R Daniel Recital Hall
California State University Long Beach
1250 N Bellflower Blvd
Long Beach, CA 90840
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Althea Waites: A Musical Celebration
Sunday, September 14, 2025
4:00pm Gerald R. Daniel Recital Hall
FREE

About the Celebration
Join us for a Musical Celebration as Althea Waites, longtime CSULB piano faculty, returns to the Gerald R. Daniel Recital Hall for an afternoon of extraordinary piano music. A distinguished champion of music by American composers and the 2023/24 Leonard Stein Resident Artist for the acclaimed PianoSpheres, Ms. Waites has concertized for over 60 years and remains active. Her most recent CD featuring several world premieres was released in 2023.

More about Ms. Waites: "Althea Waites, a trailblazing pianist, celebrates a life of music" by Rich Archbold, published in Long Beach Press-Telegram, February 13, 2024.

About Althea Waites
Internationally acclaimed pianist Althea Waites has concertized extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and South Africa as a soloist, chamber musician, and collaborative artist. In addition to performances on concert stages around the world, she has also participated in numerous festivals as soloist, collaborative pianist, and ensemble coach including Aspen, Tanglewood, the Yale Summer Festival at Norfolk, the Jocob’s Pillow Dance Festival, the Idyllwild Arts Festival in California, and the National Arts Festival at Makhanda on the Eastern Cape of South Africa.

Praised by the Los Angeles Times for "Superb technique and profound musicality," Ms. Waites has a distinguished history of championing new music by American composers and has received several tributes and commendations for her work. Recent honors include being chosen as the 2023/24 Leonard Stein Resident Artist for PianoSpheres, a California based organization that supports and promotes the performance of new music and rarely heard works especially written for the piano. The MTNA (Music Teachers National Assn.) will honor her as the 2025 recipient for the advocacy Award in recognition of diversity, equity, and inclusion in teaching and performance of music by historically underrepresented composers. Previous appearances include concerts at Disney Hall, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Merkin Hall in New York, the Geneva Conservatory of Music in Switzerland, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, as well as colleges and universities throughout the United States, to name a few.

Recording credits include Black Diamonds, a landmark CD of music by African-American composers and the premiere recording of Florence Price’s 1932 Sonata in E Minor, Along the Western Shore, and Celebration, a 2012 CD featuring music by American composers and pieces which have been written for and dedicated to Ms. Waites in honor of 60 years as a concert artist and teacher. Her latest CD, Reflections In Time, was released in 2023 and includes premiere recordings of music by Margaret Bonds.

Ms. Waites holds degrees from Xavier University of Louisiana and the Master of Music degree in piano from the Yale School of Music where she studied with the late Donald Currier. Previous teachers and mentors include Alice Shapiro, a protégé of Rosina Lhevinne, Russell Sherman, and Sister Mary Elise Sisson. She is in demand for masterclasses, recitals, lectures, and residencies at schools and arts institutions throughout the United States, and her commitment to community service is evident in her work with outreach programs in retirement homes, churches, community centers and any place where music can be used as a tool for piece and the elimination of racial and political division.

Althea Waites is a Yamaha artist and her recordings are now included on her new label, Kuumba Music.