Hastings College will host a chamber recital, Sunday, Feb. 24, at 7:30 p.m., in Perkins Auditorium, Fuhr Hall of Music. Performing will be Dr. Jonathan Sokasits and Dr. Diane Petrella on piano and Dr. James Snell and Dr. Nick Petrella on percussion.

 The recital, the second of three in a series of chamber music, is free and open to the public.

 The ensemble will perform Bela Bartok’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, and George Crumb’s Music for a Summer Evening.

 Sokasits, professor of piano at Hastings College, teaches studio piano and class piano, piano literature, chamber music, and piano pedagogy. He performs in solo, chamber and accompanying recitals. Sokasits is a member of the artists’ roster for the American Arts Council Touring Artists Program and the Heartland Arts Fund/Mid-America Arts Alliance. 

 Diane Petrella is assistant professor of piano at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.  She has appeared as a soloist with several regional orchestras and is active as a soloist, collaborative pianist, speaker and adjudicator throughout the United States. For ten years, she was on the piano faculty at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan. 

 Nick Petrella is the international director of education for Sabian Drums. He holds nine designs for sticks, mallets and percussion accessories currently on the market. He maintains a full schedule as a performer and has commissioned and premiered more than a dozen new pieces. In 2002, he and Diane Petrella formed the Petrella Ensemble, which is dedicated to commissioning and performing new works for piano and percussion. 

 Snell is an associate professor of percussion at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. A freelance timpanist and percussionist, he has performed with the Kansas City Symphony, the Kansas City Ballet, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra. Snell is also a member of Marimba Yajolon, an ethnic marimba ensemble. 
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