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Stephen Porter has performed extensively in the U.S., Italy and Turkey, and last season was the
featured guest soloist in a Bach concerto with the Amadeus Orchestra of London at LSO St. Luke’s, chosen from a
field of 32 pianists. Solo recital venues where he has appeared include Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre,
the Rockefeller Foundation Study Center at Lake Como, Italy, Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis, Amherst College’s
Buckley Recital Hall, the Frederick Historic Piano Collection, and Albert Long Hall at Bogazici University in Istanbul.
He was chosen by Steinway and Sons to present five concerts as part of its “Legendary Instruments of the Immortals”
tour in Boston and Worcester, and Steinway has also selected him to present the Art-Case Collection and give
lecture-recitals on the Horowitz piano.
Mr. Porter has been on the piano faculty of Webster University, the chamber music faculty of the Boston University
Tanglewood Institute, and the piano faculty of Phillips Andover Academy. He has judged piano competitions and
given master classes at several schools, including Washington University and Boston University. This year he
was invited to judge the final round of the New England Conservatory of Music Concerto Competition and the MTNA
national piano competition. Stephen Porter has performed chamber music with members of the St. Louis Symphony,
and with concertmaster David Halen at the invitation of the Missouri Fine Arts Academy. He graduated Magna Cum
Laude from Oberlin College, and holds a Master’s Degree in Piano Performance with Distinction from the New England
Conservatory of Music. His teachers were Peter Takacs, Jacob Maxin and Paul Doguereau, the protégé of Ravel.
He is also privileged to have received chamber music coaching from Peter Serkin at Tanglewood.
Recent chamber music appearances of note include a commemorative concert
of the Charles Ives trio at the composer’s alma mater the
Hopkins
School in New Haven,
and the remarkable piano part for the original version of Rossini’s
“Petite Messe Solennelle” at Merrimack
College’s Rogers Center
for the Arts.
Mr.
Porter’s several appearances at the Frederick Collection, including an
interview regarding his performance of the final three Beethoven Sonatas
on an original instrument, have been recorded live for broadcast on
National Public Radio. His first
CD, “Stephen Porter ~ Piano,” contains the Liszt Sonata in B minor, as
well as works by Beethoven, Ravel, Schubert, Rachmaninoff and Chopin.
He has just completed a new
recording of Schubert’s final three piano sonatas, Moments Musicaux and
an original Schubert song-transcription. Stephen Porter is a past winner of the prestigious Artist
Presentation Society of St. Louis Auditions, for which he gave a highly
acclaimed award recital.
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