The Rodeheaver Series for the Performing Arts is pleased to present organist David Kevin Lamb and pianist Madlen Batchvarova, known together as Duo Cantrasti, in concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 3, at the Warsaw First United Methodist Church in their downtown sanctuary.

David Kevin Lamb

David Kevin Lamb is currently serving as Director of Music for Trinity United Methodist Church in New Albany, IN, and for the prior 18 years served at the First United Methodist Church in Columbus, IN.  He has presented recitals in 27 different U.S. states plus Washington, D.C., and Vancouver, Canada. Concert engagements in Europe have included Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Italy and France.

He received his Doctor of Music degree in Organ and Church Music from the Indiana University School of Music where he studied with Oswald Ragatz, Marilyn Keiser, Larry Smith, and Robert Rayfield. Other areas of study included Vocal Performance/Pedagogy, Choral Conducting, and Music Education and assistant conducting the Singing Hoosiers.

Lamb is a member of the Organ Historical Society, and the Louisville, Indianapolis, and Southern Indiana Chapters of the American Guild of Organists, where he holds the Service Playing Certificate and the Colleague Certification. In 2012, Dr. Lamb was elected to a National Office in the American Guild of Organists, serving a two-year term as the Councillor for the Great Lakes Region (Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio). In the Spring of 2014 he was elected to the national office of Councillor for Membership, where he will encourage and support the areas of membership development and professional concerns.

He has recorded 14 records of organ music, including Duetti Capricciosi performed with pianist Madlen Batchvarova.

Madlen Batchvarova

Madlen Batchvarova is a native of Sofia, Bulgaria, and holds a BM and MM in music education in piano performance and solfege from the Academy of Music in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, a MM in choral conducting from Georgia State University, and a DMA in Choral Conducting from the University of Alabama. She is a pianist, conductor, singer, music educator, clinician, adjudicator and Grammy award winner, equally adept with classical and multicultural repertoire.

Some highlights of Dr. Batchvarova’s career as a pianist include the First Prize in the Competition for Czech and Slovak Music in Bulgaria, leading to concert engagements at the Bulgarian Cultural Institutes in Prague and Slovakia. She made her debut as a conductor with the Plovdiv Academy Women’s Choir of Bulgaria in concerts in Sofia and Plovdiv, Bulgaria, as well as in Preveza, Greece.

Since her arrival in the United States in 1995, Madlen has performed with the Atlanta Symphony Chorus under the direction of Maestro Robert Shaw. Some highlights include a Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance in 1998, Carnegie Hall appearances, the Opening Ceremonies of the Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Currently Dr. Batchvarova is the Director of Choral Programs at Hanover College, Indiana where she conducts choral ensembles, teaches conducting, private voice and music history. Her biography is included in the almanacs “Who’s Who in America,” and “Who’s Who of American Women.”

In addition to releasing their piano-organ duet album, Duetti Capricciosi, Duo Cantrasti has performed on American Public Media’s Pipedreams Live hosted by Michael Barone.

Their program for the greater Warsaw audience will include an equal mixture of familiar music and pieces less frequently heard, featuring works by Haydn, Clifford Demarest, Denis Bedard and Alexander Guilmant, and highlighting the incomparable Steinway grand piano and Goulding and Wood 40-rank pipe organ of First United Methodist Church.

Admission to the concert is free, with donations to the series accepted. The church is accessible to the physically challenged. The Rodeheaver Series has been bringing the highest caliber of musical and theatrical artists to the area since 1990. Directions to the church, located at the northeast corner of Market and Indiana Streets, are available at www.RodeheaverSeries.org, or by calling the church office at (574) 267-6933.