|
The acclaimed American pianist, Susan Starr, began her studies with Eleanor Sokoloff at age four. She later entered the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with Rudolf Serkin until her graduation in 1961.
Susan Starr performed on more than 50 occasions with the Philadelphia Orchestra since her debut at age six, an engagement that marked her as the youngest soloist to ever appear with a major orchestra. She has also been heard with such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Moscow State Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Denver Symphony, Houston Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Memphis Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, New Orleans Symphony, and Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, among others. In 1977 Starr had the honor of performing at the White House at the invitation of President Carter.
Among the eminent conductors who have chosen Susan Starr as soloist throughout her career are Sergiu Commissiona, Charles Dutoit, Aldo Ceccato, Raphael Fruhbeck de Burgos, Erich Kunzel, Raymond Leppard, Sir Neville Marriner, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Maxim Shostakovich, Joseph Silverstein, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, and Leonard Slatkin as well as the late conductors Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Fiedler, Eugene Ormandy, Max Rudolf, Robert Shaw, and William Steinberg. More recently she has performed under the baton of conductors such as Kenneth Schermerhorn, Leif Bjaland, Emil de Cou, Gerhardt Zimmerman, George Hanson, Alastair Neale, Richard Westerfield, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Michael Christie, and William Eddins.
Susan Starr's active international career has taken her on three tours of the Soviet Union, more than a dozen trips to the Far East and South America, as well as to Belgium, England, Germany, Greece, Italy and Sweden, and Hong Kong. As the 1962 Silver Medalist of the Tchaikovsky Competition, Susan Starr returned to Moscow later in 1994 as one of the judges of the competition. Over the span of her career, she has judged many international competitions. She continues to perform and teach at the Sarasota Music Festival, where she has done so for the past 20 years. In the USA, she has also made appearances at the Ravinia, Chautauqua, Mann Music Center, Grand Tetons and Ann Arbor May Festivals.
Among her engagements in the 2004-2005 season are performances of F. Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto and Sergei Rachmaninov-Paganini Variations with the Augusta Symphony; Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto with the Curtis Institute Orchestra in Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall; Dmitri Shostakovich Concerto No. 1 with the Philadelphia Classical Symphony and S. Rachmaninov-Paganini Variations with Rutgers University Orchestra in Isaac Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall.
Currently, Susan Starr is a Distinguished Professor at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.
Susan Starr has recorded four Bach suites for Hallmark Classics, a division of Carleton Entertainment. |
