Special Concert by Richard Critz in Coronado

Richard Critz will be presenting a special concert for Just One Church this Sunday at 10:30 a.m. at the La Huaca Resaturante of the Coronado Golf and Beach Resort.  Richard Critz, whose playing is presented on this recording, began piano y at age 16 (tenth grade) following a kind of "awakening" to classical is at the senior recital of some friends at the Starkville (Miss) High School where he was a student. After a year’s work with Mrs. Hortense Leveckck he became the private pupil of her teacher, Adolf Wieser, head of piano department at Miss. State College for Women in nearby Colombus, Miss. After another year (and his own senior recital at which played among other things Beethoven's Sonata Op. 57, he became a student of Kurt Wanieck at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, fully intending to follow a musical career.

However, World War II intervened. Richard volunteered for air corps training, received his wings as a pilot and flew 35 combat missions in heavy bombardment (B-24's) all across southern Europe. After the war he returned to school, this time Yale University, where he graduat¬ed an architect. Later, he earned a Master of Divinity degree at Drew University in Madison, NJ and for most of his life pursued a career in these fields, practicing as an architectural consultant to churches, with time to edit several magazines, including Your Church, a 'how to' journal for pastors.

Upon retiring in 1990 he returned to the music "to see if I could still play” finding that he could, set out to memorize and master a list of one hundred favorite piano compositions. Sixty-five of the hundred pieces are now "under his belt," a further twelve are in active rehearsal. Perhaps he will reach the goal after all.

Don't miss this concert!