Renowned pianist’s concert at WSU is tribute to mom who taught piano in area for 32 years

Brad Snelling’s childhood was filled with music thanks to his mother, who took him to numerous concerts and taught piano students in her home for more than three decades on Brazos Drive in Goddard.

“Hundreds of students passed through our house growing up,” recalled Snelling, now a librarian in Duluth, Minnesota.

Joyce Snelling Grubbs taught piano from 1975 until 2007, when she remarried and moved to Indiana. She died March 31 at age 89 in Texas.

“My mother had Alzheimer’s in her later years and for the longest time I wanted to do something to commemorate her and her teaching,” Snelling said.

Snelling is paying tribute to his mother with an Oct. 31 concert by Ukrainian pianist Vadym Kholodenko at Wichita State University. His mother’s estate is paying the artist fee, with all money raised from ticket sales going to the WSU music program for scholarships.

Kholodenko won the prestigious Van Cliburn competition in 2013. Snelling watched the Cliburn online and was impressed with the Ukrainian’s performance.

“I was really bowled over,” he said. “He’s a pianist I’ve been following with interest.”

The program will include works by Handel, Haydn and Beethoven in the first act, and Thomas Ades’ “Traced Overhead,” described by a critic as “inspired partly by images from sacred paintings of angels ascending toward the heavens in shafts of light.” It concludes with Liszt’s “Dante Sonata,” which Snelling says ends with the composer’s view of paradise.

Joyce Snelling Grubbs was born in Caldwell and studied at Anderson University in Indiana, and lived in Oklahoma City and Vancouver, Washington, before settling in at Goddard in the mid-‘70s.

Snelling said his mother would take him and his brother to as many arts events as they could, especially the Wichita Symphony Orchestra.

While his brother, Michael, made a career of music, including teaching piano in Oxford, England, and as a piano technician for Steinway and Sons in London, Snelling is more of a music aficionado and promoter.

He is a volunteer for a chamber music society in Duluth, one of the oldest groups in the country, which is in its 124th season this year. He currently chairs the artist committee and helps with booking.

In that role, Snelling once drove pianist Emanuel Ax from the airport in Minneapolis-St. Paul to Duluth and got to reminisce with him about one of his performances in Wichita.

Snelling, 13 at the time, his brother and their music teacher watched Ax perform a Rachmaninoff piece, he recalled.

His brother and teacher didn’t return after intermission, and Brad grew worried.

After the concert, he discovered that his brother and teacher went backstage to meet Ax, and the three of them snuck off to a different part of Century II to watch a professional wrestling match that was going on.

“They had the smoothest memory of seeing Bulldog Bob Bown, a famous Wichita wrestler at the time,” Snelling said with a laugh. Reminding Ax of the episode, Snelling said, “He remembered right away.”

VADYM KHOLODENKO

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 31

Where: Wiedemann Hall, Wichita State

Tickets: $24, with discounts for seniors, military and children; WSU students free with ID

This story was originally published October 22, 2023 at 6:13 AM with the headline "Renowned pianist’s concert at WSU is tribute to mom who taught piano in area for 32 years."