Kollel to showcase musicians at May 20 benefit concert

Kollel Jewish Learning Center will feature two well-known local musicians in a benefit concert it is hosting, the “Night of Music,” Monday, May 20, 7:30 p.m., at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill.

Anne Martindale Williams, the principal cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Luz Manriquez Meyer, pianist and associate professor at the Repertory School of Music at Carnegie Mellon University, will perform together for one night in a recital of works by Piazzolla, Prokofiev, Beethoven and Ravel.

Williams has held her position with the PSO since 1979. She has been featured as a soloist in Pittsburgh and on tour all across America, Europe and the Far East. She has also collaborated with Yehudi Menuhin, Andre Previn, Joshua Bell, Gil Shaham and Pinchas Zuckerman on numerous chamber music presentations.

Born in Chile, Manriquez has studied under Elena Weiss at the Escuela Moderna de Musica before continuing on to Switzerland and then to Carnegie

Mellon University. She has taught music at the university for more than 20 years.

As part of the program, the Kollel will pay tribute to two Pittsburgh Jewish leaders, Betty Kane and Judy Meyers, with the Suldan Shalom Award for public service.

Twin sisters Kane and Meyers were born premature. Due to a complication that was not infrequent in the 1950s they were left sightless essentially from birth. Nevertheless, their parents raised them to excel in life. After attending the Pittsburgh School for the Blind, they went on to further their education and pursue fulltime jobs, becoming wholly independent and self-sufficient members of the community.

For decades they have volunteered in the Jewish community, offering their talents and skills whenever needed. Both are proficient pianists and they have often played together for the benefit of local day schools.

Call the Kollel at 412-420-0220 for tickets. Sponsorship tickets can be purchased online at kollelpgh.org/benefit-concert.

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