“Avery Gagliano is a distinctive young talent who has already graduated to the big league of professional pianists while still a student at music college.” – International Piano magazine  

Having recently made her Carnegie Hall debut and released her debut album “Reflections” on the Steinway & Sons label, 21-year-old pianist Avery Gagliano captures audiences with her sensitivity, emotional depth, and musical expression. She gained international attention as the First Prize and Best Concerto Prize winner of the 2020 National Chopin Piano Competition, and as the only American semifinalist at the 18th International Chopin Competition in 2021. 

Recent performance highlights include appearances at world-renown stages such as the Verbier Festival, Gilmore Festival, Bravo!Vail Festival, Ravinia Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Swiss Alps Classics Festival, Carnegie Hall, Warsaw Philharmonic Hall, Cavatina Hall, Louis Vuitton Foundation, Salle Cortot, and WQXR Greene Space.

Avery has soloed with orchestras throughout the United States, including the Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra, Tuscarawas Philharmonic, MostArts Festival Orchestra, Oregon Mozart Players, the Bravura Philharmonic Orchestra and Symphony in C.  A passionate chamber musician, she regularly collaborates with ensembles, most recently sharing the stage with the Balourdet Quartet at Bravo!Vail. She also frequently performs as a guest artist with the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players in New York.Avery received the Audience Prize at the 2019 Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition, and was the winner of the Aspen Music Festival Concerto Competition, MostArts Festival Piano Competition, and 2019 National YoungArts Competition. She is an alumna of the Verbier Festival & Academy, Gstaad Piano Academy, and the Lang Lang International Music Foundation’s Young Scholars Program, a four-year winner of the US Chopin Foundation Scholarship, and has made several appearances on Philadelphia’s WRTI classical radio and National Public Radio’s (NPR) From The Top.

At the invitation of Sir András Schiff, she will join the Building Bridges concert series and appear in recitals throughout Europe in the 2022/23 season.  She will also make her debut with the Maryland Symphony Orchestra, Fort Collins Symphony, and Avanti Orchestra.

Avery is originally from Washington, D.C., where she studied with Marina Alekseyeva. She currently resides in Philadelphia and studies at the Curtis Institute of Music with Robert McDonald.  She has also studied with Gary Graffman and Jonathan Biss while at Curtis. 

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Avery Gagliano

Personally nominated to the Classeek Ambassador Programme by Sir András Schiff, pianist Avery Gagliano joins us with a recital spanning nearly 200 years and encompassing a broad range of musical styles and influences. She opens with one of the more delicate of Bach’s ‘French’ Suites, which first appeared in a music book he compiled for his second wife, possibly as a wedding present. Written in B minor, a key often reserved for some of Bach’s most impressive – and melancholic – works, the suite brings together musical influences from across Europe, making the ‘French’ moniker somewhat misleading. Following the form of a Baroque dance suite, these were designed to challenge Bach’s students as he was developing his reputation as one of Europe’s leading music teachers. 

Chopin sits at the heart of this programme, with a set of three grand, rhythmic mazurkas, thick with melodic invention and expressive range. Written during one of his summers in Nohant in France with the writer George Sand, the three mazurkas showcase the very best of Chopin’s contrapuntal writing, with contrasting lines interwoven to create a vibrant range of textures.

This gives way to Chopin’s Barcarolle in F sharp major, a piece written a few years later towards the end of the composer’s life. Although it is a lyrical work, full of sweeping romantic phrases, it’s also incredibly demanding of the pianist, requiring large interval reaches in the left hand and balanced, even passages in the right. There is a childlike simplicity and dreaminess to the playfulness of each phrase, while still being peppered with the folk-inspired harmonic language you’d expect of a barcarolle, a traditional folk song sung by Venetian gondoliers. 

Szymanowski brings us into the 20th century with his set of 10 Variations in B flat minor, dedicated to his friend and one of the world’s greatest ever pianists, Arthur Rubinstein. They follow on from Chopin’s Barcarolle with a similarly romantic style, in a hat tip to the 19th-century ideals of form construction. However, there’s a uniquely modern flavour added throughout, with moments of heavy chromaticism and dissonance thanks to Szymanowski’s bold harmonic language. 

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Avery Gagliano

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