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Biography

A standing-room-only, all-Chopin début at Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall moved The New York Times reviewer Allan Kozinn to comment that Emily White had “captured the almost improvisational quality that is the mark of great Chopin playing.” Ms. White’s international career has taken her to London’s Wigmore Hall and South Bank Centre, the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh, Saint David’s Hall in Cardiff, the Palais de l’Athénée in Geneva, and to Belgium, Italy, and Eastern Europe, as well as throughout the United States and Canada. This past October, she performed Szymanowski’s Don Juan’s Serenade in a Polish music gala honoring presenter Jan Sporek at Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall. Ms. White has appeared as soloist in Prokofiev's Concerto No. 3 at the Craiova International Festival in Romania and in Brahms’s Concerto No. 2 with the Philharmonia Sudetska in Poland, and as guest recitalist at the International Szymanowski Festival in the Polish Tatra Mountains. While living in England as the first American recipient of a London Symphony Orchestra Foundation grant, she performed for British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a private audience at Kenwood House, London, under the auspices of the English National Trust. In 2000, she introduced works by American composers William Bolcom and Yehudi Wyner to a group of diplomats in Prague at the Residence of the American Ambassador to the Czech Republic. Ms. White has completed two tours of Romania sponsored by the performing arts organizations Credidam-UCIMR, the Transylvania Philharmonic, and the Oltenia Philharmonic. Her performances have been featured on New York’s WQXR-FM and WNYC-FM radio, Philadelphia’s WFLN-FM, KPAC-FM in San Antonio, KVNO-FM in Omaha, WUOT-FM in Knoxville, and the RAI (Italian National Television). Ms. White’s new CD release of Piano Works by Szymanowski on Arabesque Recordings has been aired on Strasbourg radio’s ACCENT 4 to a listening audience of nearly 100,000.

Born in Rye, New York, Emily White spent her student years in Miami, Florida. As a youngster, she performed three times as concerto soloist at Interlochen and was honored with the Miami Herald’s Silver Knight Award for Music. Ms. White has won top prizes at the International Young Concert Artists Competition of Royal Tunbridge Wells, England, the International Mozart Competition in Austria, the Chopin Competition hosted by the New York chapter of the Chopin Foundation of the United States, and the National Federation of Music Clubs Young Artist Auditions. She has taken part in the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and in the Paloma O’Shea International Piano Competition in Santander, Spain, where she was selected as the only American among twelve semifinalists. As collaborative artist, Ms. White has performed with the Emperor String Quartet in London and the Klangfarben Ensemble in New York, as official pianist for strings at the Gubbio Festival in Italy and for oboists at the Music Mountain Festival in Connecticut, and with singers at the Juilliard Opera Center and Tanglewood’s Berkshire Music Festival. Emily White is a Steinway Artist.

Reviews

“An impressive technician who plays with power and grace and keeps the music's textures wonderfully transparent . . . She played with a glistening sense of line in the Polonaise; dark tempestuousness in the first two movements of the Sonata; a silken glow in the Mazurkas and a misty, ruminative feeling in the Nocturne. Most critically, she captured the almost improvisational quality that is the mark of great Chopin playing.”

– Allan Kozinn
The New York Times

“An artist who excels in colourfully romantic keyboard expression . . . skilled pedalling in addition to supple finger-work . . .‘Feux d’artifice’ glittered in an array of virtuoso effects brilliantly executed. In Scriabin’s Sonata No. 3, she shone an intellectual light on its quasi-mysticism, illuminating its pianistic qualities in the Romantic bravura tradition, softened by a chastely poetic andante.”

– Noël Goodwin
The Times, London

“With piety and at the same time subtlety she performed [Szymanowski’s] Masques, op. 34 and several Mazurkas, but the chief attraction of her performance were the Rags of William Bolcom, in which the spiritual essence was deftly linked with the jest under the signature of Milhaud.”

– Ruch muzyczny,
Warsaw

“The cornerstone of this well-planned concert was Robert Schumann’s Fantasie in C Major, opus 17. Upon this gorgeous, episodic masterpiece, Ms. White imposed her own definite architecture; her performance of this most passionate of the composer’s works brought tears to the eyes of some listeners.”

– The Shelter Island Reporter,
New York

“Our guest capitalized upon the richness of her inner resources, vis-à-vis the possibilities of expression which this instrument offers, moving from inwardness, gravity, and meditation to dramatic, temperamental feelings and magnificent accents. Her evolution transmitted sobriety, delicacy, and warmth.”

– Telegraf,
Constanza, Romania

“The artist, aware of her value, performed the pieces with a sensibility and a mastery rarely heard in this country’s concert halls.”

– Independentul,
Constanza, Romania

“Emily White delivered Szymanowski’s Masques with an incendiary intensity, distilling its iridescent, often voluptuous textures without ever cloying the ear. She realised the rhapsodic meditation that is Sheherazade with dramatic flair, projected the Scarbo-like Tantris the Buffoon with a witty and powerfully rhythmic elan.”

– Musical Opinion,
Leeds, UK

“American Emily White opened the evening with Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 2. Her performance was neat and bright, characterized by verve and a strong sense of partnership with the orchestra.”

– Pioneer Press,
Lake Forest, Illinois

“Awe-inspiring vitality and technical virtuosity . . . brilliantly translucent in every detail . . . dazzlingly illuminated and tingling with excitement.”

– The Scotsman,
Edinburgh

“The Concerto No. 3 in C Major for Piano and Orchestra by Prokofiev was performed by the valorous American pianist Emily White, who received numerous curtain calls. The pianist’s artistic presence and impeccable technique were utterly impressive.”

– Zum,
Craiova, Romania

“Bach’s Partita No. 6 in E minor was played to perfection. The rhythmic bounce of the dance movements and her light, airy touch were such as to move every sense in the body. This was magical playing.”

– Midweek Herald,
Devonshire, UK

“She didn’t simply perform–she was at one with the music throughout.”

– South Wales Evening Post,
Swansea, Wales