Sara Davis Buechner is a classical concert pianist of noteworthy accomplishment, virtuosic mastery, artistic sensitivity and extraordinary versatility. A major prizewinner of many of the world's most prestigious international piano competitions -- Reine Elisabeth of Belgium, Leeds, Salzburg, Sydney and Vienna -- she established her career by winning the Gold Medal of the 1984 Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition in Salt Lake City, Utah, and as a Bronze Medalist of the 1986 Tschaikowsky International Piano Competition in Moscow.
Her musical art was molded by some of the most formidable keyboard virtuosos of the Twentieth Century -- Filipino pianist Reynaldo Reyes; Americans Ann Schein, Phillip Evans and Beveridge Webster; Canadian pianist William Aide; Busoni pupils Edward Weiss, Gunnar Johansen and Mieczyslaw Munz; and graduate study with legendary keyboard masters Byron Janis and Rudolf Firkusny at the Juilliard School. Ms. Buechner has inherited, and proudly continues, their pianistic mantle.
With an active repertoire of over 100 piano concertos ranging from A (Albeniz) to Z (Zimbalist), she has appeared as soloist with North America's most prominent orchestras: the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Saint Louis and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras; the Vancouver, Victoria, Edmonton and Calgary Symphony Orchestras; and abroad with the Japan Philharmonic, City of Birmingham (U.K.) Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Kuopio (Finland) Philharmonic, Slovak Philharmonic, and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León (Spain). She was a featured artist at the "Piano 2000" Gala Concerts in the Kennedy Center with the National Symphony, and has performed solo recitals at Lincoln Center's "Mostly Mozart" Festival. In addition to her frequent North American concert appearances and radio broadcasts, she tours widely throughout the Far East on a yearly basis.
Growing in popularity in Canada, Sara has also recently performed with the CBC Radio Orchestra, Orchestra London, the Montreal Chamber Orchestra, Hamilton Philharmonic and McGill Chamber Orchestra, and has played recitals from the Canadian Atlantic to the Pacific. She was recently the subject of a feature profile in MacLeans, Canada's national news magazine.
Ms. Buechner's recording of piano music by George Gershwin was selected as a Recording of the Month by Stereophile magazine; her 1997 world première recording of the Busoni version of Bach's "Goldberg" Variations was profiled in the Arts & Leisure section of the New York Times; and her recording of Hollywood piano concertos by Bernard Herrmann and Franz Waxman won Germany's Deutsches Schauplatten Preis for best soundtrack. Pro Piano has released her CD of the complete piano music of Stephen Foster, and her fourth recording for Koch International was recently released featuring piano music by Rudolf Friml. Ongoing projects for Koch include a multi-volume Bach-Busoni retrospective and piano music of Dana Suesse. Ms. Buechner's extensive discography also includes more than ten disks for the Yamaha Disklavier and Piano Soft systems.
Ms. Buechner has commissioned new works, and given premières of important new music and film scores by Larry Bell, Dorothy Chang, Stephen Chatman, Pierre Charvet, John Corigliano, Richard Danielpour, Takehiko Gokita, Ray Green, Miriam Hyde, Dick Hyman, Henry Martin, William Thomas McKinley, Paul Moravec, Joaquin Nin-Culmell, Yukiko Nishimura, David Raksin and Charles Wuorinen. She appears regularly with the Film Society of Lincoln Center, as one of the few pianists to actively perform piano scores to silent movies -- notably the 150-minute long restored version of Ben-Hur (1925), and the Danish classic Master of the House (1925). Ms. Buechner has also collaborated on dance projects with performance artist Nori Nke Aka, mime/mask-maker Yayoi Hirano and choreographer Neta Pulvermacher; and toured internationally with the Mark Morris Dance Group.
Profiles of Ms. Buechner have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Paris Match, Noticias del Argentina, Out, Blade and Frontiers magazines; and she has been featured on the television programs Entertainment Tonight, Extra, In the Life, and Bynon. Her appearances on radio include profiles on NPR's The Fishko Files and Performance Today, WFMT's Dame Myra Hess Recital Series, WNYC's New Sounds with John Schaefer, and Westcoast Performance Today and Richardson's Roundup on Canada-wide CBC Radio.
In 2003 Ms. Buechner joined the eminent Piano Faculty of the University of British Columbia - Vancouver, where she is now Associate Professor of Piano, Piano Literature and Chamber Music. She is a former faculty member of New York University, and has presented lectures and masterclasses worldwide, from the Royal Academy in London to Indiana University to National Taiwan Normal University to The Juilliard School to the Senzoku Conservatory and Kobe-Yamate Gakuen of Japan. Ms. Buechner is a proud Yamaha artist; she speaks and reads Japanese and is an Honorary Member of the Hanshin Tigers Baseball Team of Osaka.
Sara Buechner, Piano
Biography
Sara Davis Buechner is a classical concert pianist of noteworthy accomplishment, virtuosic mastery, artistic sensitivity and extraordinary versatility. A major prizewinner of many of the world's most prestigious international piano competitions -- Reine Elisabeth of Belgium, Leeds, Salzburg, Sydney and Vienna -- she established her career by winning the Gold Medal of the 1984 Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition in Salt Lake City, Utah, and as a Bronze Medalist of the 1986 Tschaikowsky International Piano Competition in Moscow.
Her musical art was molded by some of the most formidable keyboard virtuosos of the Twentieth Century -- Filipino pianist Reynaldo Reyes; Americans Ann Schein, Phillip Evans and Beveridge Webster; Canadian pianist William Aide; Busoni pupils Edward Weiss, Gunnar Johansen and Mieczyslaw Munz; and graduate study with legendary keyboard masters Byron Janis and Rudolf Firkusny at the Juilliard School. Ms. Buechner has inherited, and proudly continues, their pianistic mantle.
With an active repertoire of over 100 piano concertos ranging from A (Albeniz) to Z (Zimbalist), she has appeared as soloist with North America's most prominent orchestras: the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Saint Louis and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras; the Vancouver, Victoria, Edmonton and Calgary Symphony Orchestras; and abroad with the Japan Philharmonic, City of Birmingham (U.K.) Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Kuopio (Finland) Philharmonic, Slovak Philharmonic, and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León (Spain). She was a featured artist at the "Piano 2000" Gala Concerts in the Kennedy Center with the National Symphony, and has performed solo recitals at Lincoln Center's "Mostly Mozart" Festival. In addition to her frequent North American concert appearances and radio broadcasts, she tours widely throughout the Far East on a yearly basis.
Growing in popularity in Canada, Sara has also recently performed with the CBC Radio Orchestra, Orchestra London, the Montreal Chamber Orchestra, Hamilton Philharmonic and McGill Chamber Orchestra, and has played recitals from the Canadian Atlantic to the Pacific. She was recently the subject of a feature profile in MacLeans, Canada's national news magazine.
Ms. Buechner's recording of piano music by George Gershwin was selected as a Recording of the Month by Stereophile magazine; her 1997 world première recording of the Busoni version of Bach's "Goldberg" Variations was profiled in the Arts & Leisure section of the New York Times; and her recording of Hollywood piano concertos by Bernard Herrmann and Franz Waxman won Germany's Deutsches Schauplatten Preis for best soundtrack. Pro Piano has released her CD of the complete piano music of Stephen Foster, and her fourth recording for Koch International was recently released featuring piano music by Rudolf Friml. Ongoing projects for Koch include a multi-volume Bach-Busoni retrospective and piano music of Dana Suesse. Ms. Buechner's extensive discography also includes more than ten disks for the Yamaha Disklavier and Piano Soft systems.
Ms. Buechner has commissioned new works, and given premières of important new music and film scores by Larry Bell, Dorothy Chang, Stephen Chatman, Pierre Charvet, John Corigliano, Richard Danielpour, Takehiko Gokita, Ray Green, Miriam Hyde, Dick Hyman, Henry Martin, William Thomas McKinley, Paul Moravec, Joaquin Nin-Culmell, Yukiko Nishimura, David Raksin and Charles Wuorinen. She appears regularly with the Film Society of Lincoln Center, as one of the few pianists to actively perform piano scores to silent movies -- notably the 150-minute long restored version of Ben-Hur (1925), and the Danish classic Master of the House (1925). Ms. Buechner has also collaborated on dance projects with performance artist Nori Nke Aka, mime/mask-maker Yayoi Hirano and choreographer Neta Pulvermacher; and toured internationally with the Mark Morris Dance Group.
Profiles of Ms. Buechner have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Paris Match, Noticias del Argentina, Out, Blade and Frontiers magazines; and she has been featured on the television programs Entertainment Tonight, Extra, In the Life, and Bynon. Her appearances on radio include profiles on NPR's The Fishko Files and Performance Today, WFMT's Dame Myra Hess Recital Series, WNYC's New Sounds with John Schaefer, and Westcoast Performance Today and Richardson's Roundup on Canada-wide CBC Radio.
In 2003 Ms. Buechner joined the eminent Piano Faculty of the University of British Columbia - Vancouver, where she is now Associate Professor of Piano, Piano Literature and Chamber Music. She is a former faculty member of New York University, and has presented lectures and masterclasses worldwide, from the Royal Academy in London to Indiana University to National Taiwan Normal University to The Juilliard School to the Senzoku Conservatory and Kobe-Yamate Gakuen of Japan. Ms. Buechner is a proud Yamaha artist; she speaks and reads Japanese and is an Honorary Member of the Hanshin Tigers Baseball Team of Osaka.