Described as “dazzling” and “scintillating,” (Classical Source) and lauded for her “beautiful singing lines” and performances filled with “drama and energy” (Joan Tower), pianist Emiko Edwards continues to captivate audiences with her sincere musical interpretations and wide variety of tonal color.
Edwards’s international performing career has taken her across North America, Europe, and Asia, where she has had the pleasure of appearing in such prized concert venues as Weill Recital Hall (Carnegie Hall), Merkin Concert Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Milton Court Concert Hall (London), and Universidad de Laboral (Spain). A champion of modern music and composers of our day, Edwards holds a number of BBC credits to her name.
Her performances of works by Henryk Gorecki and Richard Rodney Bennett have received international acclaim and have all been recorded for and broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Additional highlights include the Philadelphia premier eof the Joan Tower Piano Concerto (Homage to Beethoven), her Lincoln Center debut performing all-Copland “One has rarely heard a pianist bring out so many of the nuances latent in Copland’s piano music…[an] exceptional meeting between composer and musician,” (New York Classical Review) and the American premier of an original composition by Karen Lefrak at the David H. Koch Theater in collaboration with members of the NYC Ballet &American Ballet Theater.
Equally at home with both modern and standard repertoire, concerto engagements include those with the Guildhall Brass Ensemble, Cambridge Graduate Orchestra, Bravura Philharmonic, Temple University Symphony, Manalapan Battleground, New Sussex Symphony, and Westfield Symphony Orchestras.
A staunch advocate for American music, Edwards’s recent American programming includes the all-Copland recital at NYPL for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center (the concert included a Copland sketch gifted to the library by choreographer Agnes de Mille), an invitation to appear on 90.1 WRTI’s “Steinway Week” (Four Piano Blues, Aaron Copland), and a recital at the National Museum of African American Music (Still, Price, Bonds). She made her Chicago recital debut in 2024 presented by the American Music Project (Monk, Rochberg, Ornstein, Kirchner, Still, Higdon, Creston, Copland).
Edwards was awarded her degrees from The Juilliard School (BM), Guildhall School of Music and Drama (MPerf, Artist Diploma), and Temple University (DMA), where she had the pleasure of studying with Julian Martin, Ronan O’Hora, Sara Davis Buechner, and Lambert Orkis.
www.emikoedwards.com
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