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Constance Keene
Piano
Constance Keene
"I was flabbergasted by the fantastic color, sweep and imagination, and last but not least, by the incredible technique ...
I cannot imagine anybody, including Rachmaninoff, playing the piano so beautifully".

When Arthur Rubinstein wrote those words about Constance Keene, she had long enjoyed the admiration of her colleagues.

Since then, Ms. Keene's international career, on stage and on disc, included appearances on major recital series and with the world's leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia, the Chicago, and Halle and Berlin Philharmonic. Winner of the presitigious Naumburg prize, Ms. Keene is no stranger to chamber music. Her collaborations with Yehudi Menuhin at the Gstaad Festival won critical acclaim, as did her celebrated tour, in Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, with Benny Goodman.

Featured in David Dubal's book, Remembering Horowitz, she is herself a contributor to Clavier magazine. Ms. Keene is a frequent adjudicator for a number of international competitions, including the Van Cliburn, the Naumburg, the Scottish International and Young Concert Artists. Most recently, she served as a selector for the prestigious Alberto Vilar Global Fellows in the Performing Arts. Her master classes have taken her to Asia, Europe and South Africa. One of the most sought-after teachers in the country, Ms. Keene is on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music, where she has taught since 1969.

Constance Keene Ms. Keene posseses a prolific discography. Her recordings of the complete Hummel sonatas for Newport Classic, received critical acclaim from American Record Guide and Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times who said: "The Hummel piano sonatas, scintillatingly performed by Constance Keene ... and I find myself listening to them constantly. Ms. Keene brings suppleness, pearly tone, textural clarity and brilliance, touched by grace to her performances." And Harold Schonberg in the American Record Guide states, "Ms. Keene emphasizes the harmonic language that looks back to Mozart and the virtuoso elements that anticpate Liszt. Her fleet and accurate passagework exactly suits the writing, her textures are always clear, her scale work a delight and her musicianship is beyond reproach."

Reviews

"She is a natural pianist with a deceptively easy approach to the keyboard."
Harold Schoenberg, The New York Times
 
"A well chosen, well executed programme that leaves a critic refreshed and anxious to hear Ms. Keene again.
The Times, London
 
"Our guest from New York left an impression of an artist of world rank. She held the audience tense and spellbound"
Zagreb Dela Srede

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