Pianist Polli Chambers-Salazar has performed across the United States and Canada. On March 20, 2009 she presented “Sound and Color: Henri Matisse and the Music of his Time” at the Norton Simon Museum of Art in Pasadena. That was concert seven in a series of solo lecture recitals she has given at the museum. These multi-media performances combine solo piano music, images from the Norton Simon collection, lecture, and audience discussion. Previous concerts in the series have included “Picasso in the Twentieth Century: The Music of his Time,” “Courbet and Liszt: Revolution in Art and Music,” “From Degas to Debussy: Impressionism in Art and Music,” and “From Scriabin to Schoenberg: Music in the Time of the Blue Four.” Ms. Chambers-Salazar has received awards in many competitions, including the Simon-Fiset Competition, the New Orleans International Piano Competition, and the Seattle Young Artists Festival. She has appeared on KCBS Television and KUSC Radio, and has completed “First Flight,” a compact disc recording of solo piano music by Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Boulanger and Coleridge-Taylor.
Ms. Chambers-Salazar specializes in presenting classical recitals that inform and involve the audience, and originated the Classics Become Eclectic series. During Classics Become Eclectic concerts, audience members are encouraged to participate in dialogues with the narrator and performers, and are offered techniques for listening to and understanding classical music. Classics Become Eclectic presents public concerts, and also holds outreach performances for audiences that would not often have access to public classical concerts. Recent venues have included Euclid Villa Transitional Housing, Five Acres in Altadena, and the Hathaway-Sycamores Family Resource Center.
Ms. Chambers-Salazar received a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance from the University of Southern California. She has served on the keyboard faculties of the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California, Pasadena City College, and the College of the Canyons. She joined the faculty of El Camino College as a full-time member in the fall of 2008.