Awadagin Pratt

Piano

Among his generation of concert artists, pianist Awadagin Pratt is acclaimed for his musical insight and intensely involving performances in recitals and with symphony orchestras.

He was the first student in the Peabody Conservatory of Music’s history to receive diplomas in three performance areas (piano, violin and conducting). He also received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Johns Hopkins, was granted an honorary doctorate from Illinois Wesleyan University, and won both the Naumburg International Piano Competition and the Avery Fisher Career Grant.

Pratt has played in performances across the US, including at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, the NJ Performing Arts Center, and the White House. His many orchestral performances include appearances with the New York Philharmonic; Minnesota Orchestra; and the Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Baltimore, St. Louis, National, Detroit, and New Jersey symphonies among many others. Summer festival engagements include appearances at Ravinia, Blossom, Wolftrap, Caramoor, and Aspen as well as the Hollywood Bowl. Internationally, Mr. Pratt has toured Japan four times and performed in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Israel, Columbia, and South Africa.

Recent and upcoming appearances include recital engagements in Baltimore, La Jolla, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Ravinia, Lewes, Delaware, Duke University, and Carnegie Hall for the Naumburg Foundation as well as with the orchestras of Cincinnati, Indianapolis, North Carolina, Utah, Richmond, Grand Rapids, Memphis, Fresno, Winston-Salem, New Mexico, Rockford, IL and Springfield, OH. He also serves on the faculty of the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina where he coaches chamber music, teaches individual pianists, and performs chamber music and concertos with the festival orchestra.

An experienced conductor, Mr. Pratt has conducted programs with the Toledo, New Mexico, Vancouver WA, Winston-Salem, Santa Fe, and Prince George County symphonies; the Northwest Sinfonietta; the Concertante di Chicago; and several orchestras in Japan.

Mr. Pratt is frequently invited to participate on international competition juries, such as the Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Israel, the Cleveland International Piano Competition, Minnesota e-Competition, the Unisa International Piano Competition in International Competition for Young Pianists in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz in the Ukraine.

Awadagin Pratt is currently a Professor of Piano at the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. He also served as the Artistic Director of the World Piano Competition in Cincinnati and is currently the Artistic Director of the Art of the Piano Festival at CCM.