LEWISTON The Franco Center welcomes Anna Lombard in concert on Saturday, Oct. 5 for a show that its management feels lucky to have landed.

'Anna Lombard is a monumental talent that represents the state's best chance in a long time of getting Maine on America's music radar,' said Executive Director Louis Morin, who sought her out because of her potential to break out nationally. It was only after he booked her concert that he learned of her family's roots in Lewiston, as Lombard herself explains.

LEWISTON Legendary concert pianist and teacher Frank Glazer inaugurates the new season of Piano Series concerts at the Franco Center in Lewiston on Friday, Sept. 20 at 7:30 p.m. with a performance that will feature works by Haydn, Beethoven, Samuel Barber and Liszt.

Now in its eighth season, the Franco Center's Piano Series is unique in New England. Presenting six programs over each season, it offers recitals by world-class artists as well as rising stars in a venue that compares favorably with the finest in the world, acoustically speaking, for classical piano performance.

LEWISTON - Concert artist Igor Lovchinsky presents the final program of the 2012-2013 Piano Series season at the Franco-American Heritage Center in Lewiston on Friday, May 24. The recital begins at 7:30 p.m. and will include works by Bach-Busoni, Chopin, Scriabin and Liszt. 

Lovchinsky is one of the most popular pianists to have given recitals at the Franco Center, where he has also appeared as soloist with the Midcoast Symphony Orchestra. His electric interpretation of the Grieg A-minor piano concerto was the highlight of the Midcoast's Gala Concert in October 2011.

LEWISTON Pianist Tamara Poddubnaya will perform the fourth concert of the season in the Franco-American Heritage Center's Piano Series on Friday, Feb. 15, at 7:30 p.m. in a program that will include works by Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Scriabin and Rachmaninov.

A child prodigy in her homeland of Georgia, Poddubnaya was only 15 when she went to St. Petersburg to study at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, from which she went on to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees, including a doctorate with distinction in piano performance in 1976. Irina Kugucheva and Boris Lysenko were her principal teachers.