UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Penn State faculty member Christopher Guzman will present a piano recital at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 17, in Esber Recital Hall in conjunction with the Marian Garica Piano Competition and Teacher Workshop. His repertoire includes works by classical era composer Franz Schubert, early 20th-century composers Russian Alexander Scriabin and Spaniard Enrique Granados as well as 21st century master William Bolcom. This performance is available via livestreamed video at Penn State School of Music. Admission is free.
Pianist Christopher Guzman regularly performs for audiences throughout North America, Europe and Asia, as soloist and chamber musician. He is a multiple prizewinner in many international competitions, including the Walter M. Naumburg Competition, the Seoul International Music Competition and the Isang Yun Competition of South Korea. Recently, Guzman garnered the grand prize and several special prizes at the 10th Concours International de Piano d’Orléans of Orléans in France. As a result, he regularly travels to France to perform in Paris and throughout the Loire Valley. His CD of German and Austrian music from the past 100 years, "Vienne et après," was released in 2014 on the Tessitures label.
Guzman’s career has brought him to such venues as Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, the Kennedy Center, Carnegie’s Weill Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall and others. He performs regularly with some of the world’s most exciting soloists including Ilya Gringolts, Antoine Tamestit, David Fray and Jeremy Denk, among others. He continually performs with members of the world’s finest orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the New York Philharmonic and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2013, he was a guest artist on the New York Philharmonic’s chamber music series Philharmonic Ensembles.
His performances showcase a broad range of styles, from Baroque to the avant-garde. He continues to collaborate with many of the nation’s preeminent new music ensembles; his performances have included world premieres by Donald Martino, Nico Muhly and Paul Schoenfield. The New York Times hailed his performance of Christopher Theofanidis’s "Statues" as “coiled” and “explosive.”
Born in Texas, Guzman began studying piano at age 9 and violoncello two years later. He worked primarily with Jerome Lowenthal and Robert McDonald at the Juilliard School, Anton Nel at the University of Texas at Austin and the late Patricia Zander at the New England Conservatory.