What is Music in May?
MiM 08 will bring renowned musicians to Santa Cruz in a weekend full of concerts to be offered free of charge to all. Our intent is to expand and broaden the audience of classical music, impact youth, and increase awareness and develop relationships with other local non-profit organizations serving the Santa Cruz community.
Edward Auer
Pianist Edward Auer Edward Auer, Professor of Piano at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, has long been recognized as a leading interpreter of the works of Chopin. As the first American to win a prize in the prestigious International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, he has returned to Poland for well over 20 concert tours, playing in every major city and with every major orchestra. Auer has played solo recitals and concertos in well over 30 countries on five continents, collaborating with such conductors as Zubin Mehta, Charles Dutoit, Herbert Blomstedt, Sergiu Comisiona, Louis Lane and Robert Shaw. He spent the fall of 2005 teaching in Seoul, Korea, and his presence there led directly to a half-dozen recitals, a chamber music concert and a concerto appearance. Auer grew up in Los Angeles, where he studied piano with Aube Tzerko and composition with Leonard Stein. A precocious chamber musician and the son of an accomplished amateur violist, he was playing the Mozart piano quartets and the Schumann quintet with his father and his friends at the ripe old age of eight. He won several competitions in the Los Angeles area, and frequently appeared in concerts there, both as soloist and in chamber music. Auer’s studies continued at the Juilliard School with Rosina Lhévinne and in Paris on a Fulbright Grant under Julius Katchen. Besides the Chopin Competition, Auer was a prizewinner in the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, after which he was invited to the White House and was photographed with the President. He also took First Prize in the Concours Marguerite Long in Paris, as well as prizes in the Queen Elisabeth and Beethoven Competitions. Now, years later, these and other contests regularly invite him to be on their juries. Auer has made a number of acclaimed recordings, many of them of the works of Chopin. He is currently working on expanding his Chopin catalogue, and also recording many of the piano works of Schubert.