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Variations held her audience in a sparkling
web of enchantment . . . Her eloquence, the crispness of each note, her
total command of the range of tempos demanded by the Variations made
music as holy as music gets. I was transported beyond my hard seat into
a realm of dream. As the hold Glenn Gould maintained over this music has
thankfully worn away over the past decade, a plethora of fine musicians
has come to the fore; Grunstein is the shining light.”
"At Sarah Grunstein's Bach concerts at
Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall) in February, the opening notes of the
Prelude from the Partita in B-flat evoked memories of Dame Myra Hess and
Englishman Harold Samuel, i.e., she cared deeply about the music, knew
stylistically what to do with it, and (best of all) produced a demure,
pearly, singing tone... each note like a tiny pearl, released
gradually."
"Her superb pianism and the special sound of
the instrument, both melodious and powerful . . . combined to create an
experience that will not soon be forgotten, but that was all too soon
over . . . Remarkable!” Praised by The New York Times for her “penetrating musical intelligence,” Australian pianist Sarah Grunstein performs internationally as concert artist. Born in Sydney, her career has included concerts in the United States, Austria, Hungary, Italy, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and her homeland. Reviews have likened her performances to those of Dame Myra Hess, Harold Samuel, and Wanda Landowska. Early in her career, in celebration of the Bach Tercentenary she performed Bach’s complete "Well-Tempered Clavier" in London’s Purcell Room, New York’s Merkin Concert Hall, and the Sydney Opera House, her all-Bach recital in London leading to an invitation to perform at Kensington Palace before His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. More recently, Sarah Grunstein’s performance of the Goldberg Variations led to her being acclaimed as the “shining light” among the Bach pianists of the generation following Glenn Gould. A winner of the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Award for Young Australians, her performances have been recorded by La Civica Scuola in Milan, WQXR (New York), 2MBS-FM, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. She has appeared as concerto soloist with the Monteverdi Chamber Orchestra, the Melbourne Musicians, the Victorian State Orchestra, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Most recently she has collaborated as chamber artist with Chilean cellist Jan Müller-Szeraws. As soloist and chamber musician, Sarah Grunstein's repertoire spans from the music of J.S. Bach to Australian, American, and European contemporary chamber works. Sarah Grunstein has presented master-classes, lecture-recitals, and seminars on modern and historic pianos in the United States (including the New England Conservatory and the Frederick Historic Piano Collection), the United Kingdom, Norway, Australia, and New Zealand. She has adjudicated for the Composer Fellowship awards of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and piano competitions at the New England Conservatory, the Boston Conservatory, and Brown University. Sarah Grunstein is a graduate of The Juilliard School where she earned the Bachelor and Master of Music degrees, and held a Teaching Fellowship for four years following graduation. She earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her renowned mentors include Sascha Gorodnitzki and Herbert Stessin (Juilliard), Nancy Salas (Sydney Conservatorium), Lev Natochenny (Frankfurt Hochschule für Musik), Malcolm Bilson (Cornell University), Vincent Persichetti (Juilliard), and Greville Rothon, assistant to Claudio Arrau. She has found deep inspiration in the artworks of her father, artist Bill Grunstein, on whose life and work she has recently published. In addition to her Teaching Fellowship at Juilliard, Sarah Grunstein has taught at the Manhattan School of Music, the City University of New York, Fordham University, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and the Victorian College of the Arts. In 2002 she joined the faculty of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where she is Assistant Professor. At Holy Cross she founded and directs the monthly Performance Forums, has presented colloquia on her 18th-century fortepiano, founded the Annual Chamber Music Festival, and is Co-Director of the Chamber Music Program. She has led study tours to Carnegie Hall’s Professional Training program and the Frederic Historic Piano Collection where she founded and directs the Holy Cross Historic Piano Chamber Festivals, featuring students performing solo and chamber works on historic instruments. This festival has been broadcast by National Public Radio’s affiliate, WBUR. In her most recent concert tour Sarah Grunstein performed Bach’s Goldberg Variations in Italy at the XIV International Music Festival at Rocca Grimalda, Alessandria. At Durham University, England, she presented a lecture-recital on Chopin as improviser, entitled “Playing the Changing Face of Chopin’s Score.” Her performance-demonstration included her own improvisation between preludes. She presented master-classes in Australian universities and for the Piano Forum at the Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo. In New Zealand at the University of Auckland she presented master-classes and performed as Distinguished Artist-in-Residence. STEINWAY CONCERT ARTIST
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