- Paul Posnak
Paul Posnak is an American
pianist and music academic. He is noted for playing repertoires mixing twentieth century American music with European romantic classics, ranging fromGeorge Gershwin toFrédéric Chopin , from classical to jazz. His transcriptions and performances of the original improvisations of Gershwin,Fats Waller andJelly Roll Morton have gained him international attention.Posnak is Professor of Keyboard Performance, and Director of the Accompanying/Chamber Music Program at the
University of Miami 's Frost School of Music. His parallel international career as a concert pianist began with a scholarship to the Juilliard Preparatory School of Music at the age of eight. He earned Bachelors, Masters, and Doctoral degrees at Juilliard. He won the Loeb Prize, and First Prizes in the International J.S. Bach Competition and the Concert Artists Guild Competition. He has performed at theWhite House , the US Supreme Court, and theKennedy Center inWashington, D.C .; atCarnegie Hall andAlice Tully Hall s in New York; and throughout Europe, South America, and Asia. He has worked with many world-renowned vocalists, includingLuciano Pavarotti andJennie Tourel , and has performed and recorded with many of the world's leading chamber ensembles. His recordings include solo and chamber works for labels such as EMI, Naxos, Vox, and Arabesque. He was the featured pianist in a biographical documentary on Chopin (1999), directed by documentary film makerAnthony Allegro . He is artist-in-residence, leading master-classes at theMusique-Cordiale festival in France and has been associated for many years with other festivals inGermany and atSalzburg ,Austria .Posnak is known for his own improvisations and note-for-note transcriptions of the great American jazz pianist-composers of the 1920s and 1930s. He transcribed the original solo improvisations of George Gershwin and Thomas "Fats" Waller from the old recordings and radio broadcasts. His transcriptions of 16 of Thomas "Fats" Waller's greatest solos have been published by
Hal Leonard .External links
* [http://www.musique-cordiale.com/paul_posnak.htm Paul Posnak at Musique-Cordiale]
* [http://www.paulposnak.com/ Paul Posnak official site]
* [http://www.music.miami.edu/faculty/mkp/posnak/posnak.html University of Miami faculty profile]
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