Acclaimed St. Mary's College of Maryland pianist Brian Ganz will be giving one of his popular piano talks on the life and music of Frédéric Chopin to celebrate the anniversary of Chopin's 200^th birthday at noon Thursday, April 1, 2010, at SMCM's Auerbach Auditorium of St. Mary's Hall. The music talk is free and open to the public.

Ganz, one of the leading pianists of his generation and winner of a first grand prize in the Marguerite Long Jacques Thibaud International Piano Competition in Paris and third prize in the Queen Elisabeth of Belgium International Piano Competition, also is a faculty member at the Peabody Conservatory.

St. Mary's College of Maryland, designated the Maryland state honors college in 1992, is ranked one of the best liberal arts schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, Kiplinger's, and The Princeton Review. Founded in 1840 as Maryland's "monument school" commemorating the state's first capital, SMCM is the state's only public honors college.

More than 2,000 students attend the college, which has the highest graduation rate for all Maryland public colleges and universities. The school's waterfront campus along the St. Mary's River in Southern Maryland is home to the 2009 National Intercollegiate Sailing Association Co-ed champions.