Hailed by the New York Times as “a marvelous pianist”, Peter Takács has performed widely, receiving critical and audience acclaim for his penetrating and communicative musical interpretations. Having started piano lessons in his native Bucharest before his fourth birthday, Takács pursued his studies at the Central Music School in Bucharest, the Paris Conservatory, and Northwestern University, completing his artistic training at the Peabody Institute with renowned American pianist and teacher Leon Fleisher.
Paul Horsley
St. Louis native Paul Horsley has spent a lifetime engaged with pianists, pianos and the keyboard repertoire. As a youth in Kansas he competed in, and often won, regional and state competitions, and as a piano student of Frances Wallingford and Robert Hamilton at Wichita State University he competed in the Naftzger Competition and performed Bartók with the WSU Orchestra. At Cornell University he studied with Malcolm Bilson and earned his Master’s and PhD degrees in musicology with a secondary focus on 18th-century keyboard music. He has received grants from the DAAD, the Fulbright Foundation and other groups for research in Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and the US. As a full-time music critic for The Kansas City Star and The Independent (KC) and as a freelance writer for The New York Times, Musical America and Symphony Magazine he has written about many of the great pianists of our time and has covered three Van Cliburn International Piano Competitions, including the 2001 contest in which Stanislav Ioudenitch emerged victorious. Continue reading “Paul Horsley” »