Biography
Garnering stellar audience and
critical acclaim from around the globe, SPENCER MYER is rapidly
establishing himself as one of the most outstanding pianists of his generation.
Highlights of Spencer Myer’s
current season include debuts with the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra and
New Haven
,
Santa Fe
and
Phoenix
symphony orchestras, a return to the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and
recitals throughout the
United States
. His debut solo CD - comprising music of Busoni, Copland, Debussy and Ellis
Kohs - was released in the fall of 2007 on the Harmonia Mundi
USA label.
Spencer Myer’s orchestral, recital
and chamber music performances have been heard throughout North America, Europe,
Africa and
Asia
. He has been soloist with The Cleveland Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony
Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and
Beijing
’s China National Symphony Orchestra, and has collaborated with, among others,
conductors Nicholas Cleobury, Jacques Lacombe, Jahja Ling, Maurice Peress,
Klauspeter Seibel, Arjan Tien and Victor Yampolsky. In May 2005, his
recital/orchestral tour of
South Africa
included a performance of the five piano concerti of Beethoven with the Chamber
Orchestra of South Africa. Mr. Myer made his debut at the famed festival of the
Blossom
Music
Center
during the summer of 2007.
Spencer Myer’s recital appearances
have been presented in New York City’s Weill Recital Hall, 92nd
Street Y and Steinway Hall, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing
Arts and London’s Wigmore Hall, as well as in Chicago, Cincinnati, Fort Worth,
Knoxville, Logan and China, while many of his performances have been broadcast
on WQXR (New York City), WHYY (Philadelphia), WCLV (Cleveland) and WFMT
(Chicago). An avid chamber musician, he has also performed with the Blair and
Pacifica String Quartets. In January 2007, Mr. Myer performed Gershwin’s Rhapsody
in Blue at the Inaugural Festivities of Ohio’s Governor Ted Strickland and
Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher.
In 2004, Spencer Myer captured First
Prize in the 10th UNISA International Piano Competition in
Pretoria
,
South Africa
, as well as special prizes for the best performances of Bach, the commissioned
work, the semifinal round recital and both concerto prizes in the final round.
He is also a laureate in the 2007 William Kapell, 2005 Cleveland, 2005 Busoni
(where he was also awarded the Audience Prize), 2004 Montréal and 2003 New
Orleans International Piano Competitions. Winner of the 2006 Christel DeHaan
Classical Fellowship from the American Pianists Association, Mr. Myer also
received both of the competition’s special prizes in Chamber Music and Lieder
Accompanying. He is also the winner of the 2000 Marilyn Horne Foundation
Competition, and subsequently enjoys a growing reputation as a vocal
collaborator. Mr. Myer has been a member of Astral Artistic Services’
performance roster since winning that organization’s 2003 national auditions.
An enthusiastic supporter of the
education of young musicians, Spencer Myer has been a frequent guest artist at
workshops for students and teachers, including
Indiana
’s Goshen College Piano Workshop and the Texas Conservatory for Young Artists
in
Dallas
, and has served on the faculty of the Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory of
Music. He is also an advocate of contemporary music and inter-arts
collaboration, and has worked with the Chicago- and New York-based ICE
(International Contemporary Ensemble),
Indianapolis
’ Dance Kaleidoscope, Ohio Dance Theatre and
New York City
’s New Triad for Collaborative Arts and The Juilliard School’s “Composers
and Choreographers” series.
Spencer Myer is a graduate of The
Juilliard School, where he studied with Julian Martin. Other teachers include
Peter Takács, Joseph Schwartz and Christina Dahl. He spent two summers at the
Music
Academy
of the West, studying with Jerome Lowenthal and, later, Vocal Accompanying with
Warren Jones and Marilyn Horne. During the course of his undergraduate studies
at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, he was the recipient of numerous awards
from that institution, while, in 2000, he was named a recipient of a four-year
Jacob K. Javits Memorial Fellowship from the United States Department of
Education. His Doctor of Musical Arts degree was conferred by
Stony
Brook
University
in 2005.
Spencer Myer can be heard on the Dimension
Records label, performing music of the late
Cleveland
composer Frederick Koch, and on the
Naxos
label performing the Chamber Concerti of Huang Ruo as part of the International
Contemporary Ensemble.
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