Eldred Marshall

The Press Enterprise (Riverside, CA) hailed his “dazzling technique” and his “clean, tidy approach.” Music critic Laurence Vittes described him as an “illumination in music,” and said of his all-Beethoven recital: “Marshall presented a recital so full of musical thrills and beauties, and so in identification with the composer’s own persona, that, for a few hours, it was as if he were communing across the centuries to conjure up a rare and magical musical spectrum.” The Telegraf Online Constanta (Romania) reported that Marshall “captivated the audience” in Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 20, which he conducted from the piano.

Eldred Marshall began studying the piano at age six and played in public by age seven. His prodigious and inquisitive mind allowed him to master large swaths of the piano repertoire quickly as well as consistently win top prizes at the competitions he entered as a child. By 16, he debuted with orchestra, playing Brahms’s Piano Concerto no. 2 in B-flat Major with the Victor Valley Symphony Orchestra. Before entering into Yale University, where he graduated with honors with a B.A. in Political Science, he had already performed all over the United States.

The critically-acclaimed pianist has performed in Spain, Italy, the Republic of San Marino, Belgium, Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, the Ukraine, the People’s Republic of China, and Canada. He has performed the entire cycle of 32 Piano Sonatas of Beethoven in public, from memory, as a concentrated series, twice. Other notable tour projects include all-Bach piano recital programs including the Goldberg Variations, the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, and Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations.

As an orchestral conductor, Marshall has led the Ukrainian State Academic Orchestra (Kiev, Ukraine), the Kharkiv Youth Symphony (Kharkiv, Ukraine), the Pleven Philharmonic Orchestra (Pleven, Bulgaria), the Vidin Philharmonic Orchestra (Vidin, Bulgaria), the Filharmonica Oltenia di Craiova (Craiova, Romania), and the Constanta “Black Sea” Philharmonic Orchestra (Constanta, Romania). Additionally, he has led several opera productions, such as Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne, Le Nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte, as well as Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande.

The 2023-2024 Season will feature Marshall making his debuts as a pianist with the East Oregon Symphony Orchestra (Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4) and with the National Symphony Orchestra of Teleradio-Moldova as pianist and conductor. He will return to Bulgaria to tour three cities with the Pleven Philharmonic Orchestra, doubling as pianist and conductor in May 2024. Further, he will perform another tour of China in the summer of 2024.

Marshall earned his Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance degree from the University of North Texas (UNT) in 2018. Additionally, he earned three Master of Music degrees from Southern Methodist University (SMU): piano (2011), organ (2012) and orchestral conducting (2013).  Institutions at which he has taught include Grambling State University, Texas A&M Commerce, UNT, SMU, and North Texas Central College. His doctoral dissertation topic was on the art of conducting piano concerti from the piano – performance practice, discipline and whether or not it is “real conducting.”

Presently, Marshall serves as the Artistic Director/Conductor of the Mansfield Philharmonic Orchestra. Additionally, he serves as Associate Director of Music at Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church in Rockwall, TX. He is also the Music Director/Conductor of the Music Ministry Conservatory Choir, the founding Artistic Director/Conductor of the Lucas Chorale, and the Organist/Music Director of Grace Fellowship Seventh-day Adventist Church in Lucas, TX.