On April 27 the Arcadia community gathered in the Castle Mirror Room to hear the talents of pianist Julia Keller ’11 at the Ellen Hover Memorial Scholarship Recital. The Ellen Jane Hover ’74 Memorial Scholarship benefits a student who shows exceptional talent and passion for music.

Keller, who is the first annual recipient, performed several selections as an expression of gratitude to the donors as well as the greater community.

“The scholarship has been a great aid in pursuing the performance aspect of my passion for music,” says Keller. “I hope to take my experiences in performance to new levels in collaborating with others in the future. It is something beautiful when one can experience the language of music and convey one’s own expression among large groups of people.”

Keller has the opportunity to select her own performance pieces. Of her personal favorites, she included Chopin Etude and Haydn Sonata. She also elected to play “Maple Leaf Rag” by Scott Joplin because it was a favorite of Hover’s. However, Keller was unaware that by selecting the American jazz standard songs for the second half, she was selecting songs that Hover had grown up with and loved.

“I was told by one of my donors and a close friend of Ellen’s, Anita Sobel Feinberg ’74, that I seemed to have channeled Ellen’s favorite music, without anyone telling me at all,” she says. “To know that I could have done this has given me even more confidence and even more of an uplifting spirit than before.”

Doubtless, the evening was a joyful one for donors in attendance, Teresa Williams Defilippis ’74, Bruce Ditnes and Feinberg, three of Hover’s friends that established the scholarship in her honor. Friends of Hover’s and those passionate about music are seeking to fully fund the annual award as an endowed scholarship in her name.

For more information, please contact Drusilla Buscemi at 215-572-2523 or buscemid@arcadia.edu.