LEWISTON - Concert pianist and educator George Sebastian Lopez will give a piano recital Saturday, April 28, at the Franco-American Heritage Center. His program will include works by Rachmaninoff, Mozart and Argentinean composer Alberto Ginastera.

He will give a lecture from the keyboard, titled "A Piano for Our Times," at 3:30 p.m. Friday, April 27. It is open to the public free of charge.

Acclaimed as one of the best solo and chamber musicians of his generation, 38-year-old Lopez has performed twice at the heritage center - as soloist with the Midcoast Symphony Orchestra, and last year, after having selected the new Steinway concert grand piano for the Center, he returned to give a recital and a master class.

Earlier this season, he was piano soloist with the Midcoast Symphony in a performance of Beethoven's Triple Concerto for cello, violin and piano.

Born in Brooklyn, Lopez was raised in Belize and Texas, where he began to play the piano at age 11. He won his first competition by age 14, and two years later was awarded a full scholarship to the Hartt School of Music in Harford, Conn. He received a Franco-American study grant for graduate work in Paris and completed his master's degree cum laude in Amsterdam.

He has performed as soloist and in chamber groups in the United States and Europe. His repertoire spans from Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, to Ives, Gershwin and Romeo Melloni, who composed a concerto for Lopez, which he recorded last fall in Prague.

Lopez lectures on the arts throughout New England. He lives in southern New Hampshire, where he is a member of the faculty at the Manchester Community School of Music and at Phillips Exeter Academy. He is a guest teacher at the Portland Conservatory of Music, and last summer participated as invited artist and master teacher at the Portland International Piano Festival. Besides his appearances with the Midcoast Symphony, he has performed with the Granite State Symphony, the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra and the New Hampshire Symphony.

The concert at the heritage center will begin at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $12 for adults, $10 for students and seniors.For tickets and more information, call the box office at 689-2000; or log on to www.francoamericanheritage.org.