JEANNE BACKOFEN CRAIG, 46
Homemaker/part-time minister of music and liturgy
Forest, Virginia
United States

2016 Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition
Semifinal Round – Thursday, June 23, 2016
Van Cliburn Recital Hall
Fort Worth, Texas, USA

Piano studies and competitions took up most of Jeanne Backofen Craig’s childhood, but after graduating from Virginia Tech, she stopped performing. In the ensuing 20 years, Ms. Craig stayed home with her three children while pursuing cooking, sewing, gardening, and home-improvement projects. At the encouragement of her husband and now-teenage children, Ms. Craig started to play again, and when she learned about amateur competitions, she says she was inspired to “dig out my old music and see if I could still play those pieces.” A self-taught webmaster, she designed and maintains websites for the Lynchburg Symphony Youth Orchestra as well as her church, where she is a part-time minister of music and liturgy. In her spare time, Ms. Craig enjoys long-distance running, and she qualified and ran in the 2011 Boston Marathon.

Program:
BRAHMS, Intermezzo in A Major, op. 118, no. 2
LISZT, “Vallée d’Obermann” from Années de Pèlerinage
LISZT, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 11 in A Minor