Musical Masterworks 2007-2008 - Stephen Prutsman

Stephen Prutsman

Stephen Prutsman
Pianist

Stephen Prutsman is active in music as a composer, arranger, solo pianist and chamber musician. Recently, he was appointed Artistic Partner for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. In this role, Prutsman's duties will include concert programming, writing two commissions to be performed by the orchestra during the 04-05 season and performing and leading the SPCO from the keyboard.

As a pianist, Mr. Prutsman first won international recognition as a medallist at the 1990 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition, where he received special awards for his performance of Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev. The following year he was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and received a medal in the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition of Belgium. His solo Piano engagements have included appearances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Colorado, Baltimore, Detroit, Dallas, Houston, Omaha, and Seattle Symphonies. In Europe, he has appeared with such orchestras as the Belgian National Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Flanders Philharmonic, the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, the Bremen Chamber Orchestra, and the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Committed to chamber music, Mr. Prutsman is a founding member of Nobilis and has performed with the world's leading string quartets and has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, toured with "Music from Marlboro" and appears frequently at Spoleto/USA. In addition, Mr. Prutsman was the founder of the El Paso Chamber Music Festival, where he served as Festival Director for ten years and was also the creator of "A Festival of Music" on the island of Guam.

His latest CD release of Barber's Piano Concerto with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra was hailed as "breathtaking" by Time Out New York. Other titles in his discography include a recording of the MacDowell Piano Concerti with the Irish National Orchestra, which earned a five star rating from BBC Music Magazine. Mr. Prutsman is heard frequently on National Public Radio's Performance Today, and on numerous syndicated and local radio programs across the United States and abroad, including performances on the C.B.C., Berlin Radio, Radio France, and BBC London. He was featured in the PBS documentary on the Tchaikovsky Competition.

As a composer and arranger, several of Prutsman's works have been performed and recorded by leading musicians including the Kronos and St. Lawrence Quartets, Dawn Upshaw, the Sinfonia of Colorado, the Opus Chamber Orchestra and Yo-Yo Ma. His arrangements are featured on the Kronos Quartet's 2003 Grammy-nominated CD, Nuevo. Mr. Ma performed and recorded Prutsman's arrangements for The Silk Road Project, Sony Records and Japanese television. Other projects have included works for Kronos' "Visual Music" concerts and vocal/Piano arrangements for Dawn Upshaw of popular music from the 1960's. In September of '03 Stephen arranged a set of songs for Tom Waits and Kronos which was performed in New York for the "Heal the Divide" benefit. His string arrangements are featured in singer Nelly Furtado's latest C.D.

Stephen's compositions include Dramatis Personae, for clarinet and string quartet, Ocean Parables, (a multi-media piece for solo Piano, orchestra, exotic percussion and video that was premiered by the Santa Cruz Symphony), and Jazz Fantasy on the name B-A-C-H for Piano and string orchestra. His trademark fantasy of jazz themes, I Got Rhythm, Not! has been performed with various ensembles a multitude of times throughout the United States. Mr. Prutsman's film credits include arrangements and performances for the films, Immortal Beloved, The Man Who Cried and Big Bad Love.