The 2021 Virtual Old Time Piano Playing Contest and Junior Showcase

Dr. Ian Hominick at the University of Mississippi in Oxford produced a fine 2021 virtual program to keep the Old Time Piano Playing Contest at least partially before the public for the 47th year. Memorial Day has been the group’s traditional date for the annual event that has had several homes over the years. It was nice for all of us to be able to share this year’s modified programs, a junior showcase on Friday, May 29, and a composition competition on May 30. The founder, Ted Lemen, introduced the emcees of this year’s competition, Bill McNally and Adam Swanson. They not only took turns introducing the top twelve compositions selected, but they inserted some of their own favorites. This year’s judges were Sue Keller, Terry Parrish, and Vincent Matthew Johnson. It was a pleasure to hear Adam play David Thomas Roberts’ “The Family Line System”; Adam’s own piece, “Finger Winks,” which he wrote with Andrew Sachs; Bob Milne’s “Snowy Owl”; and as an homage to Tom Brier, Adam played Tom’s, “Spasmodic.” Bill McNally shared Vincent Matthew Johnson’s “Tickling Julie, William Albright’s “Behemoth Two-Step,” and he beautifully articulated descriptions of the classical “quotations” in his own composition, “Fancy Flight.” The works of twelve of the