Masterclass with Pianist Claude Cymerman

Masterclass with Pianist Claude Cymerman

January 9, 2015
1:00pm - 3:00pm

Join pianist Claude Cymerman for a master class on Friday, January 9 in Winifred Smith Hall 1:00-3:00 pm. Music Department students will perform works by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Chopin. The master class is free and open to the public. A native of France, Cymerman graduated from the 'Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique' in Paris with highest honors, studying with Pierre Sancan. After winning National and International Competitions, including 'Grand Prize' at the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud contest, he studied at Indiana University with Gyorgy Sebök. The late French President Georges Pompidou, in a special ceremony, recognized him as “Outstanding Pianist”.

Cymerman performs extensively as a recitalist and chamber musician and has appeared as a soloist with the Radio France Orchestra, Orchestre des Pays de la Loire, Orchestre National d’Ile de France, Orchestre Symphonique de Limoges, the Luxembourg and San Francisco Chamber Orchestras, as well as the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.
He is regularly invited to perform and give master classes at major festivals in France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Japan and Israel and has been a frequent guest on French National Radio and the BBC. In 1982 he impersonated the composer J. Brahms on French National Television.

He has performed with cellist Gary Hofmann and violinist Federico Agostini (former concertmaster of the chamber orchestra I Musici di Roma) with whom he has recorded chamber works of Erich Korngold.

Cymerman made his Carnegie Recital Hall debut in 1985 with Rumanian born violinist Sherban Lupu, (followed by a CD recording of works by Georges Enesco on the Continuum label), and has since played four more concerts there.

In June 2002, he joined virtuoso violinist Nai-Yuan Hu, First Prize winner of the 'Queen Elizabeth International Competition', for a CD recording of virtuosic transcriptions of Viennese Waltzes for the EMI-Classics label.

In addition to the standard repertoire, Cymerman also performs more unusual solo and chamber music performances, such as tangos by Astor Piazzolla, neglected works by child prodigy Erich Korngold, and his own transcription of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. He recently transcribed works of Richard Strauss, César Frank and Henri Duparc for solo piano as well as for cello/piano.

Appointed in 1974, Cymerman was named the John C. and Lillian W. Siegesmund Professor of Music in 1996 in recognition of his outstanding teaching and artistic accomplishments. Winifred Smith Hall
Free and Open to the Public.
Dates: 
Friday Jan 9, 2015, 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm