November 11, 2008

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The Alys Stephens Center and Birmingham Music Club present pianist Drew Mays at 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 23, at the Alys Stephens Center, 1200 10th Ave. S., Birmingham. Tickets are $65, $45, $35 and $25; $20 for students. Call 205-975-2787 or visit www.AlysStephens.org. Enjoy a free Prelude musical discussion at 7 p.m. and a post-show reception with Dr. Mays, hosted by the Birmingham Music Club Guild. This show is sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. Wyatt Rushton Haskell, the Birmingham Music Club and BMC Guild, WBHM, The Birmingham News, UAB and Viva Health.

In 2007 Birmingham physician Drew Mays won the Van Cliburn Foundation's International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, the oldest competition for amateur pianists in the country. Mays, who had earned two degrees in piano performance before training as a physician, began playing piano again after a 15-year "musical silence," as an example to his children to practice. In 2006, he won a silver medal in the Rocky Mountain Amateur Piano competition. As a result of the Van Cliburn victory, he has played from coast to coast, including a Smithsonian concert in Washington, D.C. 

Mays earned his bachelor of music degree and graduated summa cum laude in 1982 after being awarded a full music scholarship to the University of Alabama. As a student he won the Birmingham Music Club scholarship auditions and was awarded the additional "Best Performance" prize twice. In 1984 he began studies at the Conservatory of Music in Hanover, Germany; he then attended the Manhattan School of Music in New York. After completing his master of music degree in 1987 at the University of Alabama, he then pursued a medical degree. Mays graduated from the UAB School of Medicine with a medical degree in 1991. Board-certified in ophthalmology, he is in private practice sub-specializing in glaucoma and teaches on faculty in the UAB Department of Ophthalmology and works at the Veterans' Hospital.