Spencer Myer

Muscle Memory: Friend or Foe?

Tuesday, May 14th, 2024
10:30am - 12:00 pm

Treating muscle memory as a friend and a foe is the best route to a solid memory. This presentation will examine practice techniques geared toward physically altering passages for the purpose of forcing the brain’s engagement. Spencer will speak of his own experience performing as well as preparing students for competitions, recitals and performances.

Date:

Tuesday, May 14th, 2024
10:30am – 12:00 pm

Location: 

Klavierhaus Hall
790 11th Ave, New York, NY 10019

Lauded for “superb playing” and “poised, alert musicianship” by the Boston Globe, and labeled “definitely a man to watch” by London’s The Independent after his 2012 Wigmore Hall recital debut, American pianist SPENCER MYER is one of the most respected and sought-after artists on today’s concert stage.

He has been soloist with The Cleveland Orchestra, the Cape Town and Johannesburg Philharmonics, the Indianapolis, New Haven and Phoenix Symphony Orchestras and Beijing’s China National Symphony, collaborating with conductors Michael Christie, Robert Franz, Bernhard Gueller, Jahja Ling, Kevin Rhodes, Gerald Steichen, Thomas Wilkins and Victor Yampolsky. His 2005 tour of South Africa included a performance of Beethoven’s five piano concerti with the Chamber Orchestra of South Africa, followed by four subsequent return tours. An in-demand chamber musician, he has appeared at the Lev Aronson Legacy Festival with cellists Lynn Harrell, Brian Thornton, Ralph Kirshbaum and Amit Peled, and enjoys a recurring partnership with the Miami String Quartet at the Kent/Blossom Music Festival. Other artistic partners include clarinetist David Shifrin, soprano Nicole Cabell, and the Jupiter and Pacifica String Quartets.

Spencer Myer’s career was launched with three important prizes: First Prize in the 2004 UNISA International Piano Competition in South Africa, the 2006 Christel DeHaan Classical Fellowship from the American Pianists Association and the Gold Medal from the 2008 New Orleans International Piano Competition. He was a member of Astral Artists’ performance roster from 2003-2010.

A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory, The Juilliard School and Stony Brook University, Spencer Myer is currently Associate Professor of Piano at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, having previously served on the piano faculty of Boston’s Longy School of Music. His debut CD for Steinway & Sons — Piano Rags of William Bolcom — was released to critical acclaim in 2017, and he has subsequently released three discs for the label with cellist Brian Thornton, encompassing repertoire of Brahms, Debussy and Schumann, as well as his latest solo release, Chopin’s Four Impromptus for the Steinway Classics series.

Spencer Myer is a Steinway Artist.

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