ANN SCHEIN

• Frederick Chopin: Preludes

 "Ann Schein’s "appassionato" of Chopin’s marking is very lyrical...and she tackles the hair-raising pyrotechnical passages with remarkable smoothness."

    MusicWeb International - December 2006

 "Schein presents [the Preludes] with impeccable technique and understanding of the of the genre...It seems like the perfect interpretation. Schein gives 'the Sonata] its due...There is a feather-lightness where need be, sentiment and never sentimentality, a brewing storm channeled into productive power, discipline, and forward-looking strength. The phrases are beautifully fluid with never a jarring moment. I highly recommend the CD."

    Clavier - December 2006

    ARTISTIC QUALITY 9  /  8 SOUND QUALITY
    "...Schein's fluid majesty in the Largo takes nine minutes to quietly wipe the floor with Lang Lang's ill-sustained 14-minute travesty. And although intimacy and poetry dominate, Schein flexes her muscles when she chooses...Ann Schein has something to say in this repertoire, and she does so with style and authority."

    Classics Today, April 2006

"Incredible...not to be believed...the surprise sensation of the year"

Press Response to Ann Schein’s First Recordings

"Ann Schein is beyond the everyday"

Die Welt, Berlin

"…controlled passion and an absolute technical command…"

The New York Times

"Everything was so dazzlingly played, so musically right that all one could do was sit back in gasping admiration."

Washington Post

 

"She imparted a powerful grandeur...her audience went wild."

Baltimore Sun

Pianist Ann Schein has been thrilling audiences since her sensational first recordings for Kapp Records and her highly acclaimed Carnegie Hall debut. Her career has earned her praise in major American and European music centers and in more than 50 countries around the world. She has performed with conductors including George Szell, James Levine, Seiji Ozawa, James dePreist, David Zinman, Stanislaw Skrowacewski, Sir Colin Davis and with orchestras around the world, including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, National Symphony, London Philharmonic and BBC Symphony Orchestra.

In 1980, in an inspiring artistic triumph, Ann Schein extended the legacy of her teachers, Mieczyslaw Munz, Arthur Rubinstein and Dame Myra Hess by presenting the major Chopin repertoire in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall throughout an entire season, the first Chopin cycle heard in New York in 35 years. With soprano Jessye Norman, Ms. Schein has toured in major cities of the United States in addition to a tour of Brazil. The pair can be heard on a release from Sony Classical in early songs of Alban Berg.

In addition to her many performances in recital, concertos, and chamber music across the United States, including recent appearances in Canada and Iceland, she gives master classes and lectures as well as serving as an adjudicator in major music competitions.

From 1980 to 2000 she was a member of the piano faculty at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and has been an Artist-Faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1984. During the summer of 2005, she opened the series of the complete Beethoven Sonatas performed by members of the piano faculty. In addition, she gave performances of Brahms’ G minor Piano Quartet with Earl Carlyss, Darrett Atkins, and Sabina Thatcher, and the Violin and Piano Sonata of John Corigliano with Herbert Greenberg. For the next two summers, she has been selected to receive the Distinguished Teacher’s Chair at the Aspen Music School established by Victoria and Ronald Sims.

In August, 2005, she performed the Fourth and Fifth Concertos of Beethoven with the Santa Fe Symphony with Stephen Smith conducting, followed by chamber music performances, teaching, and master classes at the Blossom Music Festival in Cleveland.

FREDERICK CHOPIN
PIANO SONATA NO.3 IN B MINOR, OP.58
24 PRELUDES, OP.28



MSR Classics