On Thursday, January 7, A Little Lunch Music will present a free concert by pianist Edward Forstman, a senior at Eastman School of Music and a native of Vestavia Hills. Mr. Forstman will perform music by Frédéric Chopin, Johann Sebastian Bach, Maurice Ravel, György Ligeti, and Johannes Brahms. The performance is being sponsored by Nick & Pat Giordano. The café menu is available online.

Since 2013, pianist Edward Forstman has performed recitals, both as a soloist and collaborator, at the Alabama Piano Gallery and at Rochester University’s Eastman School of Music, where he is a senior. His work as a collaborator has introduced him to virtuoso performers including flutist Paula Robison and contralto Mira Zakai.

At Eastman, he has developed his love for contemporary music by working directly with the school’s student composers and premiering their works; he has also pursued this passion in a professional realm, contacting and corresponding with living composers while he learns their music.

Having grown up in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, he studied for two years at the University of Alabama at Birmingham prior to his transfer to Eastman. During his period of study in Alabama, Mr. Forstman was the winner of local and statewide competitions, representing the state of Alabama at the Music Teachers’ National Association’s Southeastern Regional Conference in 2013. While at UAB, he was a member of the University Honors Program and represented that program in a masterclass at its annual national conference in 2012. In the years of 2010 and 2011, he earned the award for best high school Junior and Senior, respectively, from the Alabama Music Teacher’s Association.

At summer festivals in 2008 and 2010, Edward performed with the National Academic Symphony of the Ukraine in Kiev. Also in 2010, he went on full scholarship to Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute, where he had masterclasses with Boaz Sharon. He has also been in masterclasses with pianists Christopher O’Riley and Yuri Kot.

At Eastman, Mr. Forstman studies under Professor Barry Snyder. By his commencement, he will have completed four years of Eastman’s rigorous academic music courses in three years. At UAB, he studied with Professor Yakov Kasman, having already studied privately with him for 6 years. In 2016, Mr. Forstman hopes to pursue a graduate degree in piano performance at an institution to be determined.