Adjudicators-Fall - pianoteacherscongress.org

Adjudicators

Russian-born pianist Anna Keiserman is known for her creative programming, expressive freedom, and singular vision. Performance credits in New York City include Le Poisson Rouge, the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and the Fête de La Musique. Other notable venues include the Jay and Linda Grunin Center for the Arts (Toms River, NJ), the Nash Theatre (Raritan Valley Community College) the Strand Theater (Hudson Falls, NY) and the Ateneu Barcelonès (Barcelona, Spain).

Anna has toured through Italy, Spain and Russia. As a soloist she performed concerti with the Volgograd Symphony Orchestra(Russia), the University of Minnesota Symphony Orchestra and the Somerset Symphony Orchestra, among others. She has been awarded top prizes in piano competitions in Russia, and 2nd place in the 2019 American Prize Competition.

With her debut album, Russian Mosaic, released in 2019 on the Sheva Collection label, Anna offers rarely heard gems by Rachmaninoff, Shchedrin, Smirnov, and Medtner. Hailed as “the impressive pianist who played brilliantly” by New York Concert Review, the Atlanta Audio Club observed: “Her insights into the four masters of Russian piano music we have here bring them to instant, vibrant life before our very ears. Keiserman applies her notable brilliance to create the strongest impressions.”

Dr. Keiserman often collaborates with contemporary composers in projects including commissions, recordings, and world premieres. The trio for saxophone, bassoon and piano Bercesue-Lament by Marc Migó Cortes was released in 2022 by PARMA Records label. The 2023 season featured recordings of works for woodwind quintet by John Sichel and Steve Cohen, as well as the world premiere of the song cycle “Paradoxides” by John Sichel.

With a focus on actively engaging audiences, Anna created several custom programs for the Salmagundi Art Club in New York City. With her American Music 1917-18, Sounding Palettes, and New York Lights concerts, Anna invited audiences to explore surprising repertoire in a variety of cultural contexts. She served as Artistic Director of the Mozaika Concert Series at Raritan Valley Community College, a series which was created to foster multicultural dialogue through the performance of music spanning from the classical canon to the 21st century. In 2017 Anna received the “Culture and Art Award” from the New Russia Cultural Center (Rensselaer, NY), for her dedication to promoting arts and culture in the community.

Anna Keiserman has served as faculty at the NYU Steinhardt School of the Arts, at the Rutgers University Extension Division, and at William Paterson University. Having earned degrees from the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music in Moscow and the University of Minnesota, Dr. Keiserman completed her Doctorate in Piano Performance at Rutgers University, where she earned the Elizabeth Wyckoff Durham Award for academic distinction and excellence in piano performance. From 2020-24 Anna served as Assistant Professor of Piano at the Raritan Valley Community College before relocating to Georgia, where she joined the Music Department at the University of North Georgia as a Part Time Faculty member.

Marcia Eckert (Director), a native of Terre Haute, Indiana, is active as piano soloist and collaborative artist and has appeared in the Mostly Mozart Festival, as well as at Merkin, Alice Tully, and Weill concert halls, and London's Leighton House. She has been referred to as "a pianist of impressive skill and sensitivity, the sort of keyboard collaborator that every instrumentalist dreams of" (Scott Cantrell, Albany Times-Union). She has travelled throughout the United States presenting lecture-recitals on piano music by women composers and on the music of Charles Ives. Recordings include chamber music by Debra Kaye on the CDs And So It Begins and Ikarus; Short Songs to the Poetry of William Blake by Nailah Nombeko, with soprano Sara Paar; Tailleferre - Musique de Chambre with violinist Ruth Ehrlich; Songs by Women with soprano Susan Gonzalez; and 20th Century Music for Recorder and Piano with Anita Randolfi. Ms. Eckert performs with the Eckert/Gilwood Piano Duo and with Sara Paar, soprano. Previous groups have included Trio della Luna, Trio laBella, Aurelia Piano Quartet, Albany Chamber Players, Polyhymnia, Sarasa, and Dulcinea Piano Trio. She has given numerous premieres, including works by Eleanor Cory, Ursula Mamlok, and Roger Zahab. Ms.Eckert has served on the keyboard, chamber music and theory faculty of Hunter College, where she was a 1998 recipient of the President's Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has been teaching piano andchamber music in the Mannes College of Music Preparatory Division since 1983. Her prize-winning students have been accepted to conservatories including Oberlin, Juilliard, Mannes, Thornton, and Ithaca, and summer festivals including Art of the Piano, BUTI at Tanglewood, Aspen Music Festival, Meadowmount, and Bowdoin Musical Festival. In 2022, her student Sawyer Dahlen was chosen to perform the world premiere of the Piano Teachers Congress commissioned piece at Weill Recital Hall inthe PTC Honors Program Winners recital. Ms Eckert is the founder and director of the summer piano intensive Pianophoria!, which began in 2004. Ms. Eckert holds degrees in Piano Performance from Indiana University School of Music (magna cum laude) and State University of New York at Stony Brook. Teachers have included Jorge Bolet, Gilbert Kalish, Claude Frank, William Masselos, Seymour Bernstein,Luis Batlle, and Lucy Greene. She has participated as a fellow at the Berkshire Music Center atTanglewood and Yale School of Music Summer Chamber Music Festival and attended the Aspen and Interlochen Music Festivals. http://marciaeckert.com