Youngstown native helping bring back McGuffey piano recitals at Ursuline Center
After a five-year hiatus due to COVID-19, the William Holmes McGuffey Historical Society is bringing back an annual afternoon recital on Sunday.
Hear classic pieces performed by Youngstown State University student Michael Nichols as well as an esteemed professor and several accompaniments.
Professor Emeritus Roman Rudnytsky with the YSU Dana School of Music will play with Nichols on a Steinway grand piano.
The show starts at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Ursuline Center Auditorium at 4280 Shields Road in Canfield. Doors open at 2 p.m.
Meet Michael Nichols
Nichols has been performing since age eleven and is a graduate of Chaney VPA School in Youngstown.
He was born at Northside Hospital and raised on the south side of Youngstown, calling himself a “true Youngstownian if there ever was one.”
“I was at a Target one evening in November or December of 2006.... playing video game demos and I got bored and it just so happened that an aisle over, there were a few 66 key cheap Casio keyboards on display,” Nichols said. “I went over there and started learning single note melodies. I also happened to hear the opening to the second movement of Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata, which made a young me tear up a bit.”
From there, every time he and his mom returned to Target, she’d find him back in the keyboard aisle.
“Got the keyboard on Christmas, and off I went teaching myself to read music. From there, I taught myself pieces, later got a teacher and the rest was history, as they say,” he said.
He’s performed in numerous YSU and Chaney concerts and recitals; he plays piano, but also arranges and directs his own music.
Nichols has studied with both Dr. Caroline Oltmanns, Y.S.U. keyboard professor and department chairperson and the late Sean Baran.
He also won the Dana School of Music Young Artist Competition and majors in keyboard performance.
“There have been very few times that I can recall in my life where I felt I absolutely had to do something. Winning that competition and playing with an orchestra was perhaps the strongest example of that,” he said. “I prepared for quite sometime - competition day came around and I was so nervous I was shaking. The performance went fine with the exception of one passage where I briefly had a memory lapse.”
“I was certain I’d lost, but there were three winners that year. Two vocalists were called, and then to my absolute shock I heard my name. It was one of the most sastisfying moments of my life,” Nicholas added.
He also received the Dana School of Music’s Eighty-Eight Hearts Scholarship, which was created by Dr. Caroline Oltmanns and awarded to the most outstanding student in the piano department.
“It was a great honor to be the first recipient,” he said.
On Sunday, he’s expected to play the first movement of the Piano Concerto of Joseph Marx, which he describes as one of the most richly beautiful music he’s read.
“Twenty to 30 minutes of what I’m playing is new stuff I’ve never played in public before, and on top of that, I’m out of practice performing in general,” he said. “That said, only about 10 of the 35-40 minute program is solo, so I’m hoping having collaborators will ease my nerves. Nonetheless, I’m very grateful to be invited to play by the McGuffey Historical Society whom I’ve been active with as a guest performer and as a volunteer for at least a decade now,” he said.
“The piece is very obscure to the point of being out of print, so a performance of it is very rare. I hope folks will come out and hear this rarely played piece which is in large part why I agreed to perform again,” Nichols said.