“Do You Hear What I Hear?” was the question that was asked last Friday in room BC-51.

The Cerritos College Keyboard Studies Program put on the lecture and piano performance known as “Do You Hear What I Hear?”

In this full-house event, Christine Lopez, director of the applied music and piano studies programs, started the show with a lecture on George Bizet’s “Carmen” and “Jeux d’ Enfant’s,” also known as, “Children’s Games.”

Performing these songs with Lopez were faculty members Sung Ae Lee, Greg Schreiner and Bruce Russell.

Lopez said, “My whole concept of the day was for my students to get familiar with the composer, George Bizet.”

She added that she wanted the audience to know Bizet as “the composer who wrote opera, and of course, as a composer who writes for the piano.”

Lee, piano instructor, said, “this was such an exciting opportunity for me. It’s such a rare arrangement of two pianos, eight hands, and four people playing together.”

Helping out with the technology of the show was music major Nelson Molina.

“[The show] actually taught me the story of ‘Carmen.’ I had no idea what it was and I learned about the French composer,” he said.

Lee talked about the audience’s participation.

“[It was] a great audience, very enthusiastic. I could tell [it] enjoyed it a lot,” she said.

Lopez also said that students come in with so much information about a certain subject, in this case, Bizet’s “Carmen.”

“But I wanted them to know more about him and the fact that, yes, ‘Carmen’ was a very famous opera, but that [Bizet] was a very fine pianist,” she added.

There will be shows on March 18 and April 15, with special guest California State University, Long Beach piano professor Althea Waites in March, as well as CSU Fullerton and Chapman University professor Sergei Martinchuk in April.