Adult Piano Seminar: Understanding the Solo Repertoire

Sergio Gallo

APS Full Session Faculty

Instruments: Piano
Education: Diplôme d’Excellence at the Conservatoire Européen de Musique de Paris (1987)
Post-Graduate Certificate at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest (1992)
M.M. and Artist Diploma at the University of Cincinnati (1994 and 1995 respectively)
Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of California, Santa Barbara (1998)

A Steinway artist, Sergio Gallo specializes in the repertoire of the Romantic period, especially Liszt and his contemporaries, including Schumann, Henselt, Brahms, and Chopin. He has also championed the work of composers in Brazil, the nation of his birth. Gallo has recorded several acclaimed CD’s for Eroica, with forthcoming projects committed Naxos Grand Piano, and Quartz labels. Sergio Gallo’s recent release of Liszt’s transcriptions of operas by Meyerbeer received a four star rating from the BBC Magazine: His recordings have received high praise from Gramophone Magazine (of his most recent Villa-Lobos recording: “splendid playing of a lively programme… [a] nuanced performance… played with exceptional artistry”) and American Record Guide (“it is hard to imagine a pianist leaving me with a more intense feeling of nobility”). In 2011, Gallo won the Global Music Awards “Award of Excellence” for his album, Mostly Villa-Lobos: 20th Century Piano Music from the Americas.

Gallo has performed with orchestras throughout the Americas and worldwide. In the last decade, he has performed in Turkey, Brazil, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Serbia, Portugal, Korea, Taiwan, Canada, and China, as well as in recitals given across the United States. Since his Brazilian national radio debut in 1986 (Radio Cultura, São Paulo) and his European radio debut in 1988 (Radio France, Paris), Gallo’s work has been regularly played on classical music radio outlets around the world. His performances of Liszt’s Hungarian Fantasy L.123, Schumann’s Concerto in A minor, Op.54, and Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No.1 in B-flat Minor, Op.23 were highlighted in 2011 Atlanta symphonic performances.

Sergio Gallo is the winner of concerto competitions of the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra and of the University Symphony in Santa Barbara. He has received a grant from the Henry Cowell Incentive Funds at the American Music Center in New York, New York, to record works by the composer, and this recording has been featured in the program Piano Matters with David Dubal. Gallo twice toured North Dakota with a Challenge America Fast-Track Grant award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Gallo earned the Diplôme d’Excellence at the Conservatoire Européen de Musique de Paris (1987), a Post-Graduate Certificate at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest (1992), an M.M. and Artist Diploma at the University of Cincinnati (1994 and 1995 respectively), and the Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of California, Santa Barbara (1998). Among his further training and involvement in professional workshops, Gallo participated in the Daniel Berenboim Workshop for Pianists and Conductors at Carnegie Hall (2000), the Orchestra Stabile Summer Festival (Bergamo, Italy, 1991), the Sergei Rachmaninoff International Courses in Piano Performance (Tambov, Russia, 1988), and the Seminaire Jean Fassina (Paris, 1986). He lives in the United States where he is Professor of Piano Performance at Georgia State University in Atlanta, and is appointed to the affiliated artist staff of the Rocky Ridge Music Academy in Estes Park, Colorado.

David Korevaar

APS Full Session Faculty

Instruments: Piano
Education: D.M.A., The Juilliard School
M.M., The Juilliard School
B.M., The Juilliard School

David Korevaar, whose playing has been called a “musical epiphany” by Gramophone Magazine, performs an extensive repertoire as a soloist and chamber musician around the US and internationally. In addition to his teaching at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he holds the Peter and Helen Weil fellowship in piano and where he has been named Distinguished Research Lecturer (2016), he is an active performer and recording artist. In the spring of 2016, Korevaar spent two weeks teaching in Kabul at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM). The 2016-2017 season also included two tours to Brazil and a recital and master classes in Mexico City. In Fall 2017, he conducted and performed two of Mozart’s piano concertos in Boulder, bringing home a skill picked up in Japan and Brazil over the last several years. Korevaar’s extensive discography includes numerous solo and chamber music recordings, most recently a recording of Lowell Liebermann’s Piano Music since 2000 and a world premiere recording of piano music by the early twentieth-century Italian composer Luigi Perrachio. Other recent releases include a disc of chamber works by Tibor Harsányi with Charles Wetherbee (Naxos), and a Chopin recital on MSR, Hindemith’s three Piano Sonatas and Suite “1922” (MSR) and two Schubert Sonatas (MSR). In addition, his collaboration with members of the Takacs Quartet has resulted in a number of releases, including a disc of Brahms with violist Geraldine Walther and cellist Andras Fejer (MSR), two Beethoven Violin Sonatas with violinist Edward Dusinberre (Decca), and Hindemith’s music for Viola and Piano with Geraldine Walther (MSR). Korevaar also writes on various musical topics, with a focus on French music.

Alejandro Cremaschi

Adult Piano Seminar Session 2 Faculty

Instruments: Piano (Session Two)
Education: MM and DMA degrees from the University of Minnesota

Alejandro Cremaschi received his MM and DMA degrees from the University of Minnesota. He earned undergraduate degrees from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina. He studied with Edith Peinado, Dora De Marinis, Nancy Roldan and Lydia Artymiw. He has been a soloist with the orchestras of the Universidad de Cuyo, Universidad de Tucumán, University of Minnesota and the National Symphony Orchestra of Argentina among others. He was a prize winner at the International Beethoven Sonata Piano Competition in Memphis, Tennessee in 2001.

Cremaschi is in demand as a specialist on Latin American piano music. He is the editor and recording artist for the new edition of Alberto Ginastera’s Doce Preludios Americanos, published by Carl Fischer Publishing in 2016. Between 1996 and 2002, he was a member of the Argentine Foundation “Ostinato,” founded and directed by his former teacher Dora De Marinis. As a member of this foundation, and in collaboration with other members, he recorded Argentine music for the labels IRCO, Ostinato and Marco Polo, and participated in concert tours in the US and Europe. Since 2004, he actively collaborated with the Argentine composer and CU professor emeritus Luis Jorge Gonzalez until his death in 2016. His recordings of solo and chamber music by Gonzalez have been released in the CDs Las Puertas del Tiempo (2009), Fervor (2012) and Tango: Body and Soul (2015) by the British label Meridian Records. Las Puertas del Tiempo was praised by Fanfare Magazine as “exemplary.”

Cremaschi’s current pedagogical research areas include concert repertoire and pedagogical music by Argentine and Latin American composers; the use of technology for remote teaching and as an aid the acquisition and training of music reading skills; the influence of self-efficacy beliefs in piano students’ achievement, motivation and practicing strategies; cultural and social aspects of piano study in Latin America; and the study and implementation of cooperative learning strategies in the piano classroom. He has been a presenter at national and international conferences including numerous Music Teachers National Association annual conferences, College Music Society national and international conferences, and the International Society for Music Education conference, as well as several webinars and online panels for the Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy and the Peabody Institute. He has published articles and reviews in the Research Studies in Music Education journal, Journal of Music, Technology and Education, European Piano Teachers Association magazine, the Journal for Technology in Music Teaching, the Piano Pedagogy Forum online journal, Clavier, The Instrumentalist, the Keyboard Companion and the Piano Magazine.

Michael Lenahan

Adult Piano Faculty

Instruments: Piano, June Session
Education: B.M., Juilliard; M.M., Rice; Artist Diploma, UT Austin

Pianist Michael Lenahan maintains a multi-faceted career as an active soloist, chamber musician, and dedicated educator currently living in Austin, Texas. He is the Silver Medalist of the 2023 Teresa Carreño Master Competition, winner of the UT Austin Concerto Competition, and a semifinalist in the 10th Seattle International Piano Competition. He has had recent concerto appearances with the Butler School of Music Symphony Orchestra and the Miami Chamber Orchestra.

Michael is a passionate educator, with two decades of teaching experience. He currently teaches at the Clavier-Werke School of Music and the Paula Wong Piano Academy in Austin, and serves on the faculty for both the Austin Chamber Music Center (ACMC) and the Rocky Ridge Music Adult Piano Seminar. His previous appointments include faculty positions at Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program and Brazosport Community College. He has also taught class piano at Juilliard and UT Austin. As a leader in the local music community, Michael serves as President of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) collegiate chapter at UT Austin and is a board member of the Austin District Music Teachers Association.

Michael received a bachelor’s degree from The Juilliard School, a master’s degree from Rice University, and an Artist Diploma from UT Austin. He is currently pursuing his Doctoral degree at the University of Texas at Austin under Anton Nel. His principal teachers also include Robert Satterlee, Jerome Lowenthal, Logan Skelton, and Robert Roux.

Larry Graham

Piano Faculty, June Session

Instruments: Piano, June Session
Education: B.M., M.M.; Juilliard

The American pianist and music pedagogue, Larry (Michael) Graham, attended public schools in Ada, Oklahoma, where he was president of his senior class and a member of the tennis team. He studied piano with the late Mabel Crabtree. He received his training at the Juilliard School of Music in New York as a scholarship student of Rosina Lhevinne (she who won the Gold Medal in piano when she graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1898) and Martin Canin. He obtained there his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees in Piano Performance. He also studied with Van Cliburn. Early successes in piano competitions such as the Kosciusko, Bloch and G.B. Dealey resulted in his debut with Dallas Symphony Orchestra in 1965. In 1969 he won the Concert Artists auditions which led to his New York debut at Carnegie Recital Hall. At Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, Belgium in 1975, he won by overwhelming vote the “Prize of the Public,” which was presented to the pianist most admired by the audience at the final performance; he was also the top-ranked American in this competition. Other international successes followed as in 1977 at the Arthur Rubinstein competition in Tel Aviv, in which he was also top-ranking American. In 1986, he closed out his brilliant competitive career with First Prize at the McMahan international Music Competition.

Larry Graham’s performances have garnered acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. He has subsequently played over 35 different concerti in performances with orchestras both in the USA and abroad. There have been numerous solo engagements as well. He performed a solo series in Japan in spring 2009. His sound is remarkably integrated across all the registers. He is an exponent of the finest traditions of what some call the golden age of pianism. His mastery of the repertoire encompasses a full range of piano works from J.S. Bach through Igor Stravinsky.

In addition to his activities as a soloist, Larry Graham has also performed extensively with chamber music ensembles along with such artists as Gil Shaham, Arnold Steinhardt, and Ransom Wilson. He has also appeared with the Guarneri, Takacs, and Tokyo string quartets. For eleven years, since the summer of 1979, he was the pianist for the highly acclaimed Pablo Casals Trio, the only ensemble that Pablo Casals personally lent his name to. He toured with the Pablo Casals Trio throughout Europe and South America.

Larry Graham joined the piano faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1975 and served there as Professor of piano for 25 years. As a teacher, he has had abundant distinction, his students having competed successfully at local, state and international levels. He is devoted to teaching, and after retirement, he continues working with gifted pre-college students and adults. Among his pupils: Kevin Ahfat, Crystal Lee, Jiaqi Long, Lori Sims, Zicong “Simon” Su.

Larry Graham has recorded on the Decca and Deutsche Grammophon labels.

Larry Graham balances his love of teaching and performing with an active outdoors life. An avid runner, backpacker, and rock climber, he was the subject of an American PBS documentary that explored the relationship between the two very diverse disciplines that he has pursued.

Michael Sheppard

Piano Faculty, June Session

Instruments: Piano, June Session
Education: B.M., M.M.. G.P.D.; Peabody

Michael Sheppard is a pianist, conductor, and composer whose performances blend emotional honesty, structural clarity, and a grounded connection to the deeper expressive layers of the music. A student of the legendary Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory, Sheppard stands in a musical lineage that values beauty over simple prettiness, depth over display, and the direct communication of the composer’s intention above all else.

He has appeared as a recitalist, soloist, and collaborator across North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, performing in venues ranging from Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall to the Kennedy Center, as well as concert halls throughout the United States and on an 18-city tour of China. His concerto performances span Bach and Mozart through Rachmaninoff, Bartók, Gershwin, Brahms, Schumann, and Tchaikovsky, appearing with orchestras across the U.S. and abroad.

Sheppard’s recording projects include Michael Sheppard Plays American Piano Music (Harmonia Mundi), the improvisatory album 12 Images, and Through Broken Time, an exploration of works by Black and Afro-descended composers with flutist Jennifer Grim.

In addition to an active performance career, Sheppard serves on the collaborative piano staff at the Peabody Conservatory, coaching and partnering with singers, instrumentalists, and conductors across the school’s programs. He also works with students at the Baltimore School for the Arts and gives masterclasses internationally.

His musical life is enriched by long-standing collaborations with leading instrumentalists, singers, and ensembles, as well as by a lifelong engagement with improvisation and composition. Sheppard approaches performance as an act of connection: an invitation into beauty, spaciousness, and a momentary expansion of the listener’s inner world.