February 2, 2018 | UHCL Staff
Ipek Bozkurt started taking piano lessons at the age of six; she had a piano at home, and her father played it. She was intrigued by the piano. “I wanted to do it, and it has become my passion,” said Bozkurt, who is an associate professor of engineering management in University of Houston-Clear Lake’s College of Science and Engineering. She will share her passion for the piano in a recital in UH-Clear Lake’s Bayou Theater on Friday, Feb. 23 at 7:30 p.m
“The piano is wonderful, it’s in my heart and at one time, there was even talk of me going to a music school,” she said. “I ended up going to school for engineering, but the piano is much more than a hobby that I do for a pastime. It’s a big part of my life.”
She said that she spends at least two to three hours daily practicing, regardless of whether she is giving a recital. “I make time for it,” she said. “It was always my dream to own a grand piano, and now I have one in my home. The day they brought the piano, I was moved to tears. And then, for a month after, when I came downstairs and saw the piano, I couldn’t believe I owned a grand piano. I’ve named my piano ‘Black Beauty.’”
In 2016, the same year Bozkurt was up for tenure, she participated in the Seventh Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition. “That was quite a year of studying and preparing,” she said. Her teachers, husband and wife duo Elif and Bedii Aran, attended Juilliard School in New York, and had the same piano teacher as Van Cliburn.
Although Bozkurt said she suffered from terrible stage fright, she’ll feel more comfortable with her friends, colleagues and her mother, who will fly in specially for the event from Turkey, in the audience. “I get terribly nervous,” she said. “It helps me to practice on the stage here in the Bayou Theater, which I do for two hours twice a week before this performance. I love this piano,” she added, looking toward the theater’s Steinway Model “B”.
Bozkurt’s performance will include Bach’s “Italian Concerto,” Beethoven’s “Tempest Sonata”, Rachmaninoff’s “Prelude in C-Sharp Minor,” among others.
For ticket information, visit https://www.uhcl.edu/bayou-theater/ or call 281-283-2065.
