Berry College Concert Series V: Awadagin Pratt, piano Thursday, February 11, 2016 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM Ford Building, Mount Berry, GA

Awadagin Pratt
www.awadagin.com

Berry College

Mount Berry, Georgia

Among his generation of concert artists, pianist Awadagin Pratt is acclaimed for his musical insight and intensely involving performances in recital and with symphony orchestras. In 1992 Pratt won the Naumburg International Piano Competition and two years later was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Since then, he has played numerous recitals throughout the U.S. including performances at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles and Chicago’s Orchestra Hall. His many orchestral performances include appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra and the Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Baltimore, St. Louis, National, Detroit and New Jersey symphonies among many others. Summer festival engagements include Ravinia, Blossom, Wolf Trap, Caramoor and Aspen, the Hollywood Bowl and the Mostly Mozart Festival in Tokyo.

Recent and upcoming appearances include recital engagements at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark and in Baltimore, La Jolla, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and at Duke University, as well as appearances with the orchestras of Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Seattle, Colorado, Portland ME, Utah, Richmond, Grand Rapids, Winston- Salem, Allentown and Springfield, OH. He played a recital in Carnegie Hall for the Naumburg Foundation in November 2010 and appeared at the 2012 Ravinia Festival in a duo recital with cellist Zuill Bailey. Internationally, Pratt has toured Japan four times and performed in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Israel, Colombia and South Africa.

Awadagin Pratt has been the subject of numerous articles in the national press, including Newsweek, People Magazine and New York Newsday. He was named one of the 50 Leaders of Tomorrow in Ebony Magazine’s special 50th anniversary issue and has been featured on National Public Radio’s Performance Today, St. Paul Sunday Morning and Weekend Edition. On television, Pratt has performed on the Today Show, Good Morning America and Sesame Street, been profiled on CBS Sunday Morning and was one of the featured soloists on PBS’s “Live from the Kennedy Center – A Salute to Slava.” In November 2009, he was one of four artists selected to perform at a White House classical music event that included student workshops hosted by First Lady Michelle Obama and performing in concert for guests including President Obama. He has performed two other times at the White House, both at the

invitation of former President and Mrs. Clinton. Pratt’s recordings for Angel/EMI include A Long Way From Normal, an all Beethoven Sonata CD, Live From South Africa, Transformations and an all-Bach disc with the St. Lawrence String Quartet. His most recent recordings are the Brahms Sonatas for Cello and Piano with Zuill Bailey for Telarc and a recording of the music of Judith Lang Zaimont with the Harlem Quartet for Navona Records.

Pratt is currently Professor of Piano and Chairman of the Piano Department at the College Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. He is also the Artistic Director of the World Piano Competition in Cincinnati as well as the Artistic Director of the Art of the Piano Festival at CCM.