Key Pianists Presents Internationally Lauded Pianist Ann Schein In An All-Chopin Recital At Weill Recital Hall At Carnegie Hall, March 11, 2020

The popular and ever-resourceful Key Pianists concert series continues its fifth season with a recital by American-born pianist Ann Schein, cited by Tim Smith of The Baltimore Sun as playing with “a disarming combination of tonal fire power and electric phrasing” (October 11, 2011), on Wednesday evening, March 11, 2020 at 7:30 pm at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. Ms. Schein returns to the Key Pianists Series with a selection of representative Chopin works to commemorate her 1980 Alice Tully Hall Chopin Recital Series where she performed the entire solo Chopin repertoire to critical acclaim. Full program details below:

“This series is all about giving voice to pianists who have something unique to tell us, but are not always given a chance to be heard in the crowded New York concert scene,” says founder, artistic and executive director Terry Eder who founded Key Pianists in 2015.

Frederic Chopin
(1810-1849)   

Nocturne in E Flat Major, Op. 55 No. 2

Polonaise-Fantasie, Op. 61

Sonata No. 2 in B Flat Minor, Op. 35

                                    ---Intermission---

24 Preludes, Op. 28

Tickets at $35 are available for purchase in person at the Carnegie Hall Box Office at 57th Street and Seventh Avenue, by phone through CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800, and online at http://www.carnegiehall.org/. Student and senior discounts are available at the box office. 

About Ann Schein, The Washington Post has written, “Thank heaven for Ann Schein…what a relief it is to hear a pianist who, with no muss or fuss, simply reaches right into the heart of whatever she is playing – and creates music so powerful you cannot tear yourself away” (May 3, 2006). From her first recordings with Kapp Records, and her highly acclaimed Carnegie Hall recital debut as an artist on the Sol Hurok roster, Ann Schein’s career has earned her praise in major American and European cities and in more than 50 countries around the world. Since her debut in Mexico City in 1957 when she performed both the Rachmaninoff Third Concerto and the Tchaikovsky B-flat Concerto, she has given thousands of concerts on every continent. 

Ms. Schein has performed with conductors including George Szell, James Levine, Seiji Ozawa, James dePreist, David Zinman, Stanislaw Skrowacewski, and Sir Colin Davis, and with major orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, Washington National Symphony, London Philharmonic, London Symphony, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Over her many years performing in London, she appeared repeatedly in the Promenade Concerts in Albert Hall, including several Last Nights, when favorite soloists are invited to perform. In 1963 she was invited to perform at the White House during the Kennedy administration. Famed critic, Paul Hume, wrote in The Washington Post, “She drew the loveliest sound from the White House piano I have heard.” 

In the 1980-81 season, Ann Schein extended the legacy of her teachers, Mieczyslaw Munz, Arthur Rubinstein, and Dame Myra Hess performing six concerts of the major Chopin repertoire in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall throughout an entire season to outstanding reviews and sold-out houses, the first Chopin cycle presented in New York in 35 years.

Ann Schein has received many distinguished honors for her Chopin performances. In a special survey of outstanding Chopin recorded performances during the bicentennial of Chopin’s birth in 2010, entitled “A Century of Romantic Music,” Gregor Benko and Ward Marston cited her performances of Chopin stating in her biography, “Ann Schein was trained in her native United States, where she studied with both Mieczyslaw Munz and Arthur Rubinstein. Her first recordings, made when she was 18 and 19, established her as one of the premier Chopin pianists of our time.” 

Recent recordings include an album of all-Schumann for Ivory Classics and an all-Chopin recording of the Opus 28 Preludes and the B Minor Sonata, Opus 58 for MSR Classics. An American album, also for MSR Classics, includes the 1945-46 Elliott Carter Piano Sonata and the Piano Variations of Aaron Copland, as well as a work written for her by double bass and guitar artist, Grammy Award-winner and jazz great, John Patitucci, entitled “Lakes.” His nephew, J.P. Redmond, a rising composer, has written a piano sonata dedicated to her named “Northeastern Sonata.” An upcoming MSR release will include works of Chopin, Debussy, and Ravel.

Ms. Schein served on the piano faculty of the Peabody Conservatory from 1980 to 2001, and was honored with a Distinguished Alumni Award in December of 2012.  From 1984 to 2016, she was an Artist-Faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School appearing in over 90 performances of solo, chamber works, and concertos, teaching many hundreds of students. During 2008-09 seasons she served as a Visiting Faculty member at Indiana University. From 2007 to 2010 she was on the jury of the Irving S. Gilmore Keyboard Festival. She was invited to serve as Visiting Professor at the Eastman School of Music for the 2015-2016 season and performed and taught at the Bowdoin Music Festival and the Meadowmount School of Music in the summer. She joined the piano faculty at the Mannes School of Music in 2017. In November, 2018, she was honored with a Lifetime Achievement in the Performing Arts by the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. She gave master classes and performed in the Matthay Festival at the University of Alabama, the International Keyboard Institute and Festival in New York at Hunter College, and the Rebecca Penneys Piano Festival at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

A book written by the music critic for The Washington Post author and musicologist, Cecelia Hopkins Porter, entitled, “Five Lives in Music: Women Performers, Composers and Impresarios from the Baroque to the Present” features Ann Schein as the 20th Century artist. 

Recently she performed the Third Rachmaninoff Concerto with the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, a work she has played more than 100 times throughout her career. She was honored for her 80th birthday at Peabody Conservatory in December 2019, performing the Chopin F Minor Concerto with conductor Edward Polochick. She is invited to perform the Fourth Beethoven Concerto in June 2020, on the occasion of the 75th Anniversary of the Hoff-Barthelson School of Music in Scarsdale, New York.

Key Pianists Concert Series was conceived by pianist Terry Eder to fill a void in New York concert life: "Many wonderful pianists playing with wisdom, insight, sensitivity and beauty are not heard in New York. These stellar artists, as well as New York audiences, deserve an event to share this extraordinary music-making." This new concert series presents pianists in repertoire of special significance to them. 

To close out the 2019-2020 season, pianist Jonathan Plowright, noted for “world-class [playing]; understated virtuosity at its best” (BBC Music Magazine), will perform Liszt’s Consolations, Brahms’ Sonata in F Minor, Josef Suk’s Pisen Laski, and two works by Paderewski at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall on Thursday evening, June 4, 2020 at 7:30 pm.

For further information, please contact Hemsing Associates at (212) 772-1132 or visit www.hemsingpr.com.

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