Pianist Sara Buechner was the clear audience favorite in Oakland Symphony performance!

San Francisco Chronicle - October 18, 2025

Michael Zwiebach - Review

 

Sara Buechner performance with the Oakland Symphony

 

"But the clear audience favorite was soloist Sara Davis Buechner, whose febrile account of Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Minor was the concert’s other high point. 

 

Buechner, a frequent guest of the Oakland Symphony, tore through the challenging opening movement with virtuosic intensity. Then she turned inward for a second movement of luminous calm and control. She was in command, technically, although her pedaling was so emphatic — her foot lifting completely off the floor — that she was actually out of breath at the conclusion. The orchestra hung with her, though Ravel didn’t make it easy on them, either.

 

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Pianist Sara Davis Buechner is a musician of “intelligence, integrity and all-encompassing technical prowess” (New York Times), a performer of “fascinating and astounding virtuosity” (Philippine Star), renowned for her “thoughtful artistry in the full service of music” (Washington Post).

Japan’s InTune magazine puts it simply. “When it comes to clarity, flawless tempo selection, phrasing and precise control of timbre, Buechner has no superior.” In her twenties, Ms. Buechner was the winner of a bouquet of prizes at the world’s première piano competitions — Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, Leeds, Salzburg, Sydney and Vienna. She won the Gold Medal at the 1984 Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, and was a Bronze Medalist of the 1986 Tschaikowsky International Piano Competition in Moscow.

Her breathtaking range of repertoire includes 125 piano concertos ranging from A (Albeníz) to Z (Zimbalist), which she has performed internationally with the world’s great orchestras. Her numerous recordings have received prominent critical appraisal, and she is one of the only prominent concert pianists to perform and record original scores for silent motion pictures.

The broad sweep of Ms. Buechner’s artistry is presented in her autobiographical stage show “Of Pigs and Pianos,” which she wrote, produced and starred in to acclaim from the New York Times and other media in 2022. She continues to appear in the show yearly, with its première at the International Gilmore Festival in 2026.

Ms. Buechner is Piano Chair of the Greenwich House Music School in New York City, Professor of Piano at Temple University in Philadelphia, and an Adjunct Professor at New York University. As the most prominent transgender musician of her generation, Sara Davis Buechner appears often as a spokesperson for the LGBTQ community. She has been a dedicated Yamaha Artist for nearly 40 years.