SENIOR PIANO

Adjudicator:  Edwin Gnandt

Canadian pianist EDWIN GNANDT enjoys a successful career with over five hundred appearances as soloist, accompanist, adjudicator and workshop clinician.  He has been praised by the San Francisco Examiner for his “consistently alluring sound,” by the Oakland Tribune for his “ear for phrasing,” and by the Los Angeles Times for his “distinct refinement.”  Mr Gnandt’s performances have taken him throughout Canada and the United States as well as to Russia and Scotland.  Recent appearances include St Petersburg, Russia; Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Vancouver.   

Mr. Gnandt completed his Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Calgary and his Master of Music at the University of Washington under Randolph Hokanson.  He also studied at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland under a Canada Council grant and did postgraduate studies with Adele Marcus at the Juilliard School of Music in New York.  He collaborates and records with many of Canada’s finest musicians.   Mr. Gnandt currently serves as a Associate Professor Of Music at Ambrose University College, Calgary. 

“Edwin Gnandt is a pianist of sensitivity; he has about him that elusive but distinct refinement that a wine connoisseur or a horseman might refer to as breed.  One gets the impression that at his worst, this pianist couldn’t offend one’s sensibilities, that a lapse of taste wouldn’t figure in his musical makeup.” 

                Benjamin Epstein, Los Angeles Times

“Gnandt seems to have an endless variety of tonal weight at his command.  He possesses a French style of coloration - like a painting that features 15 shades of light blue and 20 shades of dark blue.”

                Heuwell Tircuit, San Francisco Chronicle

“He possesses a rare gift that few people have – he phrases from the heart.”

                Aldo Ciccolini

 “He polished this outgoing concerto nicely with a fine finger technique and an ear for phrasing.”

                Charles Shere, Oakland Tribune