Two well-known area pianists will offer classical, jazz and modern piano compositions as part of the Daniel Pearl World Music Days celebration at Temple B’nai Shalom in East Brunswick on Thursday, Oct. 21.

The 8 p.m. concert, which is free to the community, will feature the music of Paul Kimmel and Jim Lapidus. Their performances will continue the Daniel Pearl Education Center’s support for Daniel Pearl World Music Days, an international celebration marking the contributions to community and understanding of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was murdered by extremists while researching a story in Pakistan in 2002.

“This concert marks our seventh year in support of Daniel Pearl World Music Days,” said Dr. Andrew Boyarsky, chairman of the center’s committee. “It is very important for us to celebrate Daniel’s commitment to music as a way to bring cultures and people together through music. This is always a very special night for us, and it is particularly exciting to feature two wonderful pianists who have a strong local following.”

In recent years, the Daniel Pearl Education Center has brought a variety of musical styles to East Brunswick, including rock, Brazilian jazz, classical music and klezmer.

A chemistry teacher at East Brunswick High School  for 40 years and a chemistry lecturer at Rutgers University, Kimmel is also an accomplished pianist. He is the advisor of  the Musicians Club at East Brunswick High School and has performed in local recitals, as soloist and in ensemble groups. In addition, Kimmel has made it an annual tradition to give all of his high school chemistry students a concert on the day before winter break, showing them that  science and music can complement each other.

Lapidus performs regularly as a jazz pianist in the local area, both as a leader and a sideman. He also works as a composer, arranger and teacher.

The Daniel Pearl Education Center is a non-profit, charitable organization committed to the ideals of understanding and cooperation – principles that are part of the legacy of the late Daniel Pearl. Pearl, the Southeast Asia bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped and murdered by extremists in Pakistan in October 2002. The DPEC sponsors a broad spectrum of community-wide, interfaith programming, highlighted by its annual teen bus trip, with St. Bartholomew’s School and other houses of worship and youth groups, to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.

The concert is free, and light refreshments will be served. More information is available by contacting the Temple B’nai Shalom office at 732-251-4300.