Viewing entries tagged
Piano

Pieta Brown

Pieta Brown

Pieta Brown is hailed as a "self-styled poetess, folk goddess and country waif" by the BBC, and over the course of the past decade-and-a-half, she’s released eight critically lauded records, prompting NPR to applaud her "moody, ethereal" songwriting, and the NY Times to praise her “sweet, smoky voice.” Her work garners praise and support from a wide array of peers and mentors, including legendary producer Don Was, filmmaker Wim Wenders, and Bon Iver mastermind Justin Vernon, who called Brown’s 2014 album Paradise Outlaw his “favorite recording made at our studio.” More »

Aya Hamada

Aya Hamada

Harpsichordist and Pianist, Aya Hamada is an active concerto soloist, recitalist, chamber musician and continuo player. Currently she plays principal keyboard for the New York Symphonic Ensemble and ProMusica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus.

She has given numerous recitals and chamber music concerts in major venues throughout Japan as well as the US and Europe, including a recital in "Music in the Mountains; International Recital Series" in New York City. She frequently performs at Carnegie Hall, Steinway Hall, Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, and the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. In April 2003, she premiered Kati Agocs's "Apollonia (harpsichord concerto)" with the New Juilliard Ensemble, and in 2005 she performed "Concerto for Oboe, Harpsichord and Strings" by Osvaldas Balakauskas in the New Paths in Music Festival in New York City. Last season, she performed J.S.Bach's all Brandenburg Concertos with Kasai Philharmonic Orchestra to a sold-out audience in Japan. She has also performed with the Juilliard Symphony, Ensemble America, and the Berkshire Opera Company. She was recently featured on the cover page of New Jersey Independent Press, and also reviewed in the Boston Globe, the Berkshire Eagle and Springfield Republican.

Ms. Hamada won first prize in the London Music Festival Competition, second prize in the Josef Hofmann Piano Competition, and was also a winner of the Manhattan School of Music Concerto Competition and the Artists International Auditions. She was a recipient of the Heward Memorial Scholarship and the Irene Diamond Graduate Fellowship from the Juilliard School.

A native of Kobe, Japan, Ms. Hamada made her debut with the Kobe Chamber Orchestra at the age of seventeen. Since moving to the US, she has earned her master of music degree from the Juilliard School. Her teachers have included Ruth Laredo, Richard Contiguglia, German Diez, Louis Bagger and Lionel Party.

She resides in Manhattan, New York City.

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Eliran Avni

Eliran Avni

Hailed as "The new hope of Israeli music" by Ma'ariv and described as possessing both "ironclad technique" and "ample suppleness" by the New York Times, Eliran Avni is an emerging force in the contemporary classical music scene. Having made his debut with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zubin Mehta at age seventeen, Mr. Avni has appeared as a soloist and chamber collaborator throughout Europe, North and South America, as well as in his native Israel and has made numerous recordings for the Naxos label and the Israeli and German broadcasting systems. A charismatic lecturer and teacher, Mr. Avni has given master classes and lectures on the connection between music and the emotions in the US and Israel and has taught at prestigious institutions such as The Juilliard School and the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival.

Mr. Avni began his musical training at the Tel Aviv Academy studying with Marina Bondarenko. He soon developed a strong affinity for chamber music and worked with leading musicians such as Yo Yo Ma, Isaac Stern, and Yefim Bronfman. At age sixteen he won first prize in both the Clairmont and Rachmaninoff Competitions and was an annual scholarship recipient from the Israel-America Cultural Foundation from 1989- 2000.

A frequent collaborator, Mr. Avni has worked with renowned musicians such as Yehonatan Berick, Daniel M�ller-Schott, Yehuda Hanani, Terrence Wilson, Jennifer Aylmer, William Sharp, the Chicago Chamber Music Players, actors Sigourney Weaver and Richard Chamberlain, as well as in performances of Schumann's Symphonic Etudes with dancer Laura Careless.

Mr. Avni received both his BM and MM degrees while studying with Veda Kaplinsky at The Juilliard School and completed his DMA degree as a student of both Veda Kaplinsky and Jerome Lowenthal. His dissertation: "The Musician's Challenge: Merging Emotion and Structure in Performance", written under the advisement of Dr. Carl Schachter,presents an original methodology designed to assist musicians in uncovering and understanding the emotional content of musical works.

A preeminent interpreter of the music of Israeli composer Avner Dorman, Mr. Avni has been privileged to record two CDs of Dorman's music. The first, The Piano Works of Avner Dorman, was recorded at Tanglewood's Ozawa's Hall in 2006, was produced by Grammy winner David Frost and was released on the Naxos label. The second CD, of Dorman's Chamber Concerti with the Metropolis Ensemble and Maestro Andrew Cyr, will be released in 2010, also on Naxos.

Currently Mr. Avni is dividing his time between performing solo and chamber concerts, conducting workshops and master classes on the subject of emotional understanding of music and teaching at both The Lucy Moses School and The New York Chamber Music Program.

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Maya Keren

Maya Keren

Maya Keren is a pianist, vocalist, composer, and songwriter from Philadelphia. They are interested in the process of environing people, voices, instruments, and sounds in ways that invite connection with one’s erotic instinct, embody compassionate and queer relations with the self and the collective, and destabilize learned systems of domination…

Anastasia Shmytova

Anastasia Shmytova

Anastasia Shmytova is a musicologist, singer, and pianist from Saint Petersburg, Russia. A recipient of the Arthur Mendel University Fellowship in Music, Anastasia is currently pursuing a PhD in Musicology at Princeton University, with a focus on medieval and early modern Slavic and Byzantine chant. As a singer and pianist, Ms. Shmytova has performed with groups including the Seattle Symphony, the Seattle Bach Choir, the Byrd International Singers, the Princeton Glee Club, Early Music Princeton, and the international award-winning chamber choir Art Sonus.

Nhi Huynh

Nhi Huynh

Nhi Huynh made her orchestral debut with the Ho Chi Minh City Symphony Orchestra (Vietnam) at the age of thirteen. She is a new music advocate with a strong passion to promote contemporary music and bring it to a wider audience, having performed and premiered works by over 30 living composers. As a winner of 2020 Stony Brook University Concerto Competition, Nhi will perform Sheila Silver’s Piano Concerto (1996) with Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra in March 2022.

Baldwin Giang

Baldwin Giang

Baldwin Giang (b. 1992, Philadelphia) is a composer, pianist, and interdisciplinary artist whose work aims to empower communities of audiences and performers by creating concert experiences that are opportunities for collective wonder and judgment. Described as "taut and cohesive...challenging and rewarding" (Cacophony), Baldwin’s music has been performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Symphony Center, and Chateau de Fontainebleau.

Gabrielle Chou

Gabrielle Chou

Gabrielle Chou is a New York-based pianist and violinist seeking to defy genres and break barriers in music education and performance tradition. On both instruments she performs solo, chamber music, and in large ensembles, teaches and lectures in the studio and classroom, coaches chamber music, collaborates with composers and dancers, and is active in community engagement. Her education includes the Colburn Music Academy, The Juilliard School, and the CUNY Graduate Center, where she is getting her doctorate. Gabrielle serves as faculty at Baruch College, staff pianist and teaching fellow at Juilliard, and plays with the Center for Musical Excellence, Metropolis Ensemble, and Nu Deco Ensemble. She loves art museums, aquariums, playing video games, and reading science fiction.

Marta Sánchez

Marta Sánchez

Born and raised in Madrid, Spain, pianist and composer Marta Sánchez is actively working in the contemporary creative music scene in New York City and around the globe. Charting a significant path through her innovative and original music, she has reached an international audience, gaining significant global recognition. As a bandleader, she is currently working with her New York based Quintet, with her band Room Tales, featuring singer Sara Serpa, and with the Quartet Open Can, featuring Ralph Alessi, Michael Formanek and Mark Ferber. She is involved in many other music projects as a collaborator, performer, and/or studio musician in the United States and abroad.

Mary Prescott

Mary Prescott

Mary Prescott is a Thai-American interdisciplinary artist, composer and pianist who explores the foundations and facets of identity and social conditions through experiential performance. Featured in “21 for ‘21: Composers and Performers Who Sound Like Tomorrow,” The Washington Post describes her work as “masterfully envisioned… a bright light cast forward.”

Mikael Darmanie

Mikael Darmanie

Mikael Darmanie has performed throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa, Russia and the Caribbean. Recent festival appearances have included: The Weil Institute at Carnegie, Trinity Wall Street, Prototype, Bang on a Can Marathon, Close Encounters With Music, Berkshire High Peaks Festival, Cape Cod Symphony Nth Degree, Pianofest in the Hamptons, the Mozarteum, Mainly Mozart, and L’Acadèmie de Musique de Sion.

Joey Chang

Joey Chang

Pianist/Improviser Joey (Ian-Joe) Chang has performed improvisation in venues including The Stone at the New School, Roulette, and Millennium Stage at Kennedy Center. He has presented fully improvised concerts at the Sparkhill concert series and the Clayton Piano Festival in NC and has composed structured improvisation for art installations as well as dance choreography. He is co-founder, with violinist Katherine Kyu Hyeon Lim, of "The Moving Orchestra", a multidisciplinary improvisation organization. Joey obtained his B.M. and M.M. from the Juilliard School.

Han Chen

Han Chen

Praised by the New York Times for his “graceful touch,” “rhythmic precision,” and “hypnotic charm,” pianist Han Chen has established himself in both the classical music and contemporary music worlds with his versatile programming and effortless technique…