Events

The ESU National Shakespeare Competition is a performance-based educational program serving grades 9-12. Since 1983, the competition has engaged more than 400,000 young people. Approximately 2,500 teachers and 20,000 students in nearly 60 ESU Branch communities participate each year. The ESU National Shakespeare Competition is aligned with modern educational practices. The ESU National Shakespeare Competition has been recognized by the Globe Center (USA), the Children’s Theatre Foundation of America and the American Academy of Achievement.

Join us for an evening of music with Pianist, Lorna Griffit and Violinist, Haroutune Bedalian. Lorna Griffitt began her career at age 16 performing the Grieg Piano Concerto with the Louisville Orchestra conducted by Robert Whitney. Working with Menahem Pressler, she received her doctorate with distinction in piano performance from Indiana University. She has since appeared on different continents around the world in solo, chamber and concerto performances. Griffitt has enjoyed a long career as a professor of piano, beginning her teaching career in 1974 at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana and, after more than two decades there, joining the music faculty at the University of California, Irvine in 1993. Recently, Griffitt recorded in London a compact disc of solo piano and violin duo works by Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms with violinist Haroutune Bedelian, released by Centaur Records in 2022. Haroutune Bedelian is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, London, where at age 20 he won the first prize in the BBC Violin Competition. His teachers have included Ivan Galamian and Nathan Milstein. He has performed in major cities, festivals and concert halls throughout North and South America, the United Kingdom, Europe and the Middle East and has appeared in numerous radio and television broadcasts.