Pianist, violinist team up for collaborative concert

Flathead Valley LIVE On Stage and Kalispell Area Music Teachers Association proudly present violinist Byron Wallis and pianist Alfredo Oyaguez in concert. 

The concert will be on Thursday, Feb. 20, at 7:30 p.m. in the Flathead High School Auditorium. Tickets are $15 for adults, $8 for students, and $35 per family. Proceeds benefit the Steinway piano maintenance fund.    

The Wallis Oyaguez Duo program includes sonatas by Mozart, Prokovief, Bach and Schumann, as well as a show piece by Saint-Saens.

Violinist Byron Wallis lived in Montana from 2000 to 2005, when he was co-concertmaster of the Great Falls Symphony and violinist with the Cascade Quartet. Since then he has been living in Paris working as a freelance violinist. With French orchestras he has performed at Carnegie Hall and at the Concertgebow in Amsterdam, as well as all the main Parisian concert halls. He was recently hired as string teacher for the Paris Opera's outreach program "Dix Mois d'Ecole et d'Opera". 

Spanish pianist Alfredo Oyaguez is on the faculty at conservatories in Spain and Germany, both as collaborative pianist and conductor. He maintains a busy international performance schedule which in recent months has taken him from Singapore to Argentina. He is director of the Deia Festival in Mallorca, Spain.

Wallis and Oyaguez began performing together when they met at the University of California-Santa Barbara in 1997 during doctoral studies. They first performed together in Kalispell 10 years ago.

Local nonprofit Flathead Valley LIVE On Stage is dedicated to the presentation of an annual concert series in Northwest Montana. Kalispell Area Music Teachers (KAMTA) was formed in 1977 as an organization of music educators throughout the Flathead Valley who provide mutual professional support for each other and promote music through their various programs and activities.