Stephen Porter has performed extensively in the U.S., Italy and Turkey, and in 2008 was invited to be the featured guest soloist with the Amadeus Orchestra in London, chosen from a field of 32 pianists. His playing has been described as “superb, invigorating, perfect” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch). 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, and is currently on the piano faculty of Phillips Andover Academy and the chamber music faculty of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. He has judged piano competitions and given master classes at several schools, including Washington University and Boston University. 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 performed on a Viennese Graf (the recording also includes the Moments Musicaux and an original Schubert song-transcription), to be released in 2009.  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.