Liza Stepanova (Submitted photo)
Liza Stepanova, UGA associate professor of piano and piano area chair, is offering a free recital in Ramsey Concert Hall at the UGA Performing Arts Center on Jan. 10 at 5:30 p.m.
Stepanova’s most recent performance at UGA was alongside the UGA piano area students and faculty during the Thursday Scholarship Series Piano Extravaganza on Oct. 5, 2023. In addition to her work as performer and educator, Stepanova is the director of the Chamber Music Athens Festival, which will be making a full return to Athens May 12-21 with six concerts featuring internationally renowned guests, faculty and students.
For more information on this concert visit music.uga.edu. Chamber Music Athens Festival information will be available later this month.
Praised by The New York Times for her “thoughtful musicality” and “fleet-fingered panache,” Stepanova is in demand as a soloist, collaborator and educator. In fall 2020, she was named Musical America Worldwide’s “New Artist of the Month,” a rare distinction celebrating her work and particularly the impact of her recent album “E Pluribus Unum.”
Stepanova has performed extensively in Europe, most recently as a soloist with the Southwest-German Philharmonic and in chamber music performances at the Berlin Museum of Musical Instruments and Belgrade’s Kolarac Hall. In the United States, she has appeared in Weill and Zankel Recital Halls at Carnegie; Alice Tully Hall, Merkin and Steinway halls in New York City; at the Kennedy Center and The Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.; and live on WQXR New York, WFMT Chicago and WETA Washington.
As a member of the Lysander Piano Trio, Stepanova won the Concert Artists Guild International Competition and received top prizes at the Coleman and Fischoff Chamber Music Competitions. The ensemble recently celebrated its 10th anniversary with a new album “Mirrors,” (First Hand Records, UK) dedicated to works the group either commissioned or premiered, including a world-premiere recording of a work by Jennifer Higdon.
Since 2010, Stepanova has been on the faculty at SongFest at The Colburn School in Los Angeles and also served as the festival’s associate artistic director and piano program director for two years. Stepanova received her DMA from The Juilliard School with a Richard F. French Award for outstanding doctoral work. Previously a graduate of the Hanns Eisler Academy in Berlin, Germany, she studied with Joseph Kalichstein, Seymour Lipkin, Jerome Lowenthal and George Sava, and performed in master classes for Alfred Brendel, Daniel Barenboim and András Schiff. Following teaching positions at The Juilliard School and Smith College, she is currently a tenured associate professor of piano and piano area chair in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music.
