Michael Lewin, piano
www.michaellewin.com

His technique and ability qualify him eminently for success.
- The New York Times

A most sensitive and brooding performer, with a controlled, awesomely intense style. He roared passionately yet precisely through the Chopin. His Prokofiev wove a web of childhood dreams and nightmares. - The Washington Post

What an intelligent program, and what a satisfying pianist. It will be good to hear him again. - The Boston Globe

Michael Lewin is internationally applauded as one of America’s most gifted concert pianists, performing to acclaim in over 30 countries. Acclaimed as an artist of “majestic power and searing emotion,” his popular recordings, charismatic music-making and dazzling virtuosity have won him a worldwide career and a devoted following.

Commanding a repertoire of 40 piano concertos, his orchestral engagements include the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Cairo Symphony, Bucharest ‘Enescu’ Philharmonic, China National Radio and Film Orchestra, Filharmónica de Guadalajara, State Symphony of Greece, Youth Orchestra of the Americas, Orquesta Sinfónica de Puerto Rico, the Boston Pops, the Symphonies of Phoenix, Indianapolis, Miami, Colorado, Nevada, West Virginia, Illinois, North Carolina and the Sinfonia da Camera. He has premiered two piano concertos by David Kocsis, and performed Gershwin’s "Rhapsody in Blue" over 50 times. He has collaborated with conductors including Carlos Miguel Prieto, Keith Lockhart, Constantine Orbelian, Ian Hobson, Sergei Babayan, Maximiano Valdés, Hugh Wolff, Anton Kersjes and Seymour Lipkin.

Lewin’s career was launched with victories in the Liszt International Piano Competition in the Netherlands, the William Kapell International Competition, and the American Pianists Association Award. At his New York Lincoln Center debut, The New York Times proclaimed that “his immense technique and ability qualify him eminently for success.” His tours have taken him to the Ravinia, Newport and Spoleto Festivals, Moscow’s Great Hall, Hong Kong's City Hall Theater, Taipei's National Concert Hall, China's Poly Theatres, the Opera House of Cairo, the Athens Megaron, Holland’s Muziekcentrum Vredenburg, and London’s Wigmore Hall. His popular PBS Television recital hosted by Victor Borge featuring the Schubert “Wanderer Fantasy” and Chopin Etudes was widely rebroadcast. He has been the featured interview in Clavier and Piano & Keyboard Magazines, and edited piano music of Griffes for C.F. Peters. A Steinway Artist, he was Artistic Director of the Steinway & Sons 150th Anniversary Gala Concert held in 2003 in Boston’s Symphony Hall. A devoted chamber musician, he was Artistic Director of the Boston Conservatory Chamber Players and played in the Lewin-Chang-Díaz Trio and the Lewin-Muresanu Duo. He has premiered music by Joel Hoffman, David Kocsis, Sylvia Rabinof, Robert Chumbley, Andy Vores and John Harbison. Composers with whom Mr. Lewin is particularly associated include Beethoven, Schubert, Debussy, Chopin, Liszt, Griffes and American and Latin American composers.

Mr. Lewin won a Grammy Award in 2014 for the New Age Album “Winds of Samsara,” and a Round Glass Music Award for his two Debussy recordings for Sono Luminus, “Starry Night” and “Beau Soir”, which have garnered extraordinary critical praise. The discs include both Books of Préludes, Estampes and a variety of other solo works. Also on Sono Luminus is "Piano Phantoms," music inspired by phantoms and the spirit world, and “If I Were a Bird,” a popular collection of bird-themed pieces, which received a Grammy nomination in the "Producer of the Year" category. For Naxos he made a best-selling collection of Scarlatti Sonatas and a landmark two-CD set of the complete piano music of American composer Charles Tomlinson Griffes. His Centaur recordings include “Michael Lewin plays Liszt," “A Russian Piano Recital,” (Scriabin, Glazunov and Balakirev), “Bamboula!" piano music of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, and the Violin Sonatas of William Bolcom with violinist Irina Muresanu. In preparation is a disc of Latin American piano music.

One of America’s most sought-after teachers, he has taught many prize-winning pianists, gives master classes worldwide and is a frequent international competition judge. He is Professor and Head of Piano at The Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Artistic Director of the Boston Conservatory Piano Masters Series and Classical Music Director at Ethos Music in China. Born in New York, he studied at the Juilliard School. His teachers include Leon Fleisher, Yvonne Lefébure, Adele Marcus and Irwin Freundlich. Please visit www.michaellewin.com for more information.