Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter
Dr. Brian Marks has been playing piano for half a century. As a child, he often watched his mother play.
“When I was a little boy, I used to sit underneath the grand piano and listen to her practice, so that’s where I first developed my love of it,” Marks said.
When Marks was in college, he tried to study other subjects like linguistics and business, but said he kept coming back to music.
Marks and Dr. Mike Jacobson, Baylor professor of Saxophone, were nominated for a Grammy a few years ago for their recording of a piece by American composer, John Harbison. Marks said it would not have been possible without Jacobson.
Marks performed multiple traditional pieces in Roxy Grove Hall on Monday evening. He said the pieces selected are special to him because he has always wanted to perform them, but hadn’t been able to.
“All of them are very deeply emotive works,” Marks said. “They’ve reached the deepest parts of what music can offer in terms of an emotional connection to that thing that we can’t define. And that’s those depths that music can plum that many other artistic fields can’t.”
