Enrico Elisi, piano
Enrico Elisi regularly performs to acclaim throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia, with recent engagements in the US, Canada, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Taiwan, and China. He has appeared with orchestras in Italy, Portugal, and the US, including a 2005 performance with the Hopkins Symphony. In 2007, he debuted as soloist/conductor with the Green Valley Festival Chamber Orchestra (Las Vegas), a festival that he co-founded and directed. An active international chamber musician, he has performed at the Taos and Ravinia Festivals, given duo recitals in China, and collaborated with principal players from the Baltimore, Chicago, and American Symphony Orchestras.
A champion of new music, he has commissioned and premiered works from composers of many nationalities. He recently premiered one such commission, Paul Chihara's Images, at Weill Hall, Carnegie Hall. His vision for contemporary music led to his founding and directing an international composition competition, Arioso Musica Domani.
Mr. Elisi has appeared in radio and television broadcasts around the world. A CD of piano works by Mozart will be released this summer, and he will be featured in a recording dedicated to music by Paul Chihara for Albany Records.
Among Mr. Elisi’s awards are top prizes in the Venice Competition and the Oporto International Competition. He has also received a La Gesse Foundation Fellowship. He is in demand as a competition judge, has given master classes and performed at universities around the world, and is a frequent guest teacher at the Accademia delle Marche in Italy and the China Academy of Arts in Hangzhou. At the 2007 World Piano Pedagogy Conference, he performed a joint recital with Leon Fleisher. He has directed the Piano Institute of the Las Vegas Music Festival. He recently established and is president of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Liszt Society.
Mr. Elisi is a member of the piano faculty at Penn State University, having previously taught at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. This fall he joins the piano faculty of the Eastman School of Music as an associate professor.
In his native Italy, Mr. Elisi studied in Bologna and earned diplomas from the Conservatory of Florence and the world-renowned Incontri col Maestro International Piano Academy of Imola, where he worked with Lazar Berman, Boris Petrushansky, Alexander Lonquich, and Franco Scala. He earned MM and DMA degrees with distinction as a full-scholarship student of Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Institute. He also benefited from the mentorship of Boris Slutsky and took part in master classes with Jörg Demus, Murray Perahia, and Maurizio Pollini.
Learn more about Mr. Elisi at www.enricoelisi.com.
March 13, 2011