|
The American pianist, Benjamin Laude, obtained his Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance from Rice University's Shepherd School of Music (2004-2008); his Master of Music degree in Piano from The Juilliard School (2008-2010); and his Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano from The Juilliard School (2010-2015). His principal teachers were Jerome Lowenthal, Matti Raekallio, Robert Roux, and Eric Hicks. Winner of the national Yamaha Young Performing Artist competition, he received top prizes at the Kingsville International Piano Competition and the Shepherd School of Music Concerto Competition.
Debuting with the Austin Symphony at age 17 in a performance of Sergei Rachmaninovf’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Benjamin Laude has appeared across the country, from Miami to Santa Fe, San Diego, the British Virgin Islands to New York City, including recent performances in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and Alice Tully Hall, as well as around the world, from Prague to Ramallah. He has been heard in live performance on Chicago’s WFMT as part of the Myra Hess Memorial Concerts, WQXR’s Chopin Marathon at the Greene Space in New York, as well as Austin’s “Eklektikos” and “Classical Austin” programs. The New York Times described his solo performance of Steve Reich’s Piano Phase as “an amazing, absorbing feat,” and praised his playing of Dmitri Shostakovich and Igor Stravinsky as “superb in pace, tone, and eloquence.”
In October 2017, Benjamin Laude appeared as a special guest on David Dubal’s nationally syndicated program “The Piano Matters” (WWFM) for a three-part series commemorating the 35th anniversary of Glenn Gould’s death, featuring excerpts from Laude’s recordings of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations (J.S. Bach) and Partita No. 6 in E minor (BWV 830). During the 2018-2019 season he appeared as a guest soloist at Piano Evenings with David Dubal and the Bach Store in New York; in collaboration with violist Hannah Rose Nicholas as part of the Tri-County Concerts Association’s Emerging Artists Series in Philadelphia; and in a lecture recital at the University of California-Irvine.
Benjamin Laude was Adjunct Professor at Bard College in Annadale-on-Hudson, New York (August 2014-May 2016); taught at the Suzuki School for Strings in New York (September 2014-October 2017); and during the summer served on the faculties of Berkshire Summer Music and Danbury Chamber Music Intensive. He was assistant to classical music popularizer and radio host David Dubal in New York City (June 2018-May 2019). Currently, he is Head of Piano at tonebase Piano in Los Angeles, California (since April 2019). An accomplished writer, he founded in 2012 The Yard, the first independent, student-run publication of its kind at Juilliard. His writings on music and society have since been published in International Piano magazine, Jacobin magazine, and Yuga Cohler’s State of Art blog. |
