John P Milbauer

Biography

Steinway Artist John Milbauer has recently performed in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, and Japan as well as throughout the United States. Highlights of 2017 include Ravel's Concerto in G with the Boston Pops and Keith Lockhart in Boston's Symphony Hall, Poulenc's Aubade with San Diego Winds, recitals with Stephanie Houtzeel of the Vienna State Opera, and residencies with the Conservatorios Nacionales Superiores of Sevilla and Jaén in Spain. Current projects include a recording of the music of Manuel Ponce and performances of Milbauer's "Which Side Are You On?" program based on themes of protest, immigration, and workers' rights. France's Republique du Centre has called him "a virtuoso of the first magnitude" while American Record Guide wrote, "Milbauer employs a full expressive range, performs with astounding delicacy, and conveys unspeakable wonder through an intimate touch and astonishing versatility." A laureate of the Orléans Concours in France for piano music of the 20th Century, he has performed concerts devoted only to chance music and enjoys playing music that employs electronic sounds, prepared piano, extended techniques, and graphic notation; in a similar vein, he has contributed a chapter on the performance of the music of John Cage to The Pianist's Craft series. A versatile musician, Milbauer has performed with the Mills Brothers and Pink Martini, and has a discography that includes a release with violinist David Garrett that has over 250,000 views on YouTube.

Milbauer studied music, classics, and government at Harvard College before earning degrees from the Eastman School of Music, The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, and, as recipient of a Fulbright grant, the Liszt Academy in Budapest. He was awarded the Eastman Performer's Certificate (the highest performance honor of the school) and the Wolodarsky Prize from the Banff Centre, and was nominated for the Gina Bachauer prize for outstanding pianist at Juilliard. His teachers include Jerome Lowenthal, Ferenc Rados, György Sebök, and Rebecca Penneys. From 2001 until 2007 Milbauer was on the faculty of CSU-Chico; currently he is Professor of Piano and Coordinator of the Keyboard Area at the University of Arizona Fred Fox School of Music. Since 2012 he has been Co-Director of the Chautauqua Piano Program, helping to transform it into one of the premiere summer piano programs in the Americas. An avid hiker, Milbauer has led more than a dozen backcountry tours through Grand Canyon, most recently a solo hike on Tanner Trail to the Palisades.

 "A virtuoso of the first order." 

---La Republique du Centre, France.

"Crystal-clear Mozart with exemplary ornamentation...Milbauer displayed his musical sovereignty in Ravel's Tombeau...a master of agogic and rhythm, and one hopes for his return."
---Walliser Zeitung, Switzerland (2011)

"In April 2008, we aired the recital that introduced a new addition to the piano faculty, John Milbauer. Not only was this broadcast a chance for many southern Arizona listeners to "meet" a musician they had probably not heard in concert, but it presented selections that they never hear in our daytime CD-based programming. The recital included some familiar items by Claude Debussy and Franz Schubert, but it also featured a superbly played survey of 20th-century keyboard music: works by Arnold Schoenberg, John Cage, John Adams, George Crumb and Mario Davidovsky. Conservative listeners might hesitate to attend a concert with such a lineup, but when it sneaks up on them via the airwaves they can hear, without risk or prejudice, fresh music that they might otherwise avoid. One friend of mine--who is by no means a specialist in 20th-century styles-- has repeatedly told me how "bowled over" he was by the Milbauer concert."
---James Reel, Contributing Editor for Strings, and Classical Manager for Arizona Public Media, writing in Lo Que Pasa

"The program for pianist John Milbauer's glorious Sunday-afternoon concert of innovative and/or musically groundbreaking selections was filled with contemporary critiques of the composers whose works he played. Bach, such critiques said, is "mediocre"; Beethoven, "impenetrably obscure," and so on. The concert, of course, set out to disprove all such assertions and did so magnificently... Other works included a couple of delicious John Cage pieces, including one that had the lanky Milbauer sitting cross-legged on the ground before a toy piano, a series of Chopin Mazurkas, and a magnificent, concert-ending, play-the-keys-off-the-piano rendition of "Orage" from Liszt's Years of Pilgrimage--Switzerland. A marvelous concert!"
---Ernst Schoen-Rene, News and Review, California

"Considered one of the most beautiful works of Brahms, the monumental Sonata for Two Pianos is an immense undertaking, not only from a technical point of view with its severe difficulties, but also bringing to light the subtle introspections, the serene melancholy, the contained passion, and an apparent interior search. This extraordinary version of Paulina Zamora and John Milbauer brought the full house to its feet with strenuous and lengthy applause, just retribution for an evening of the highest quality...A wonderful gift to the people of Santiago."
---El Mercurio, Santiago, Chile

"The Bartok Concerto, brilliantly played by pianist John Milbauer, was the audience hit, from a rhythmic first movement filled with nature/bird sounds to an absolutely beautiful, pensive second movement in which the soloist, as if in solitary space created by quivering strings, seems to ruminate before concluding with an excitingly rapid final movement."
---The Sacramento Bee

More:

• Chautauqua Institution Music Festival
• UA Keyboard Area website and audition information
• Audio Clips

Degrees

• M.P.A.
• Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government, Cambridge, Massachusetts
• D.M.A. Piano
• Manhattan School of Music, New York, New York, United States
• Unity in the Absence of Narrative in Robert Schumann's "Liederkreis" Op.39
• Certificate in Piano Performance Piano
• Liszt Academy, Budapest, Hungary
• M.M. Piano
• The Juilliard School, New York, New York, United States
• B.M. Piano
• Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York, United States
• leave of absence Music/Classics/Government
• Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

Awards

• Taubeneck Superior Teaching Award
• UA College of Humanities, Fall 2020
• John F. Kennedy Fellowship
• Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government, Spring 2020
• Maestro Award for student excellence
• FFSoM, Fall 2018
• 1885 Fellowship at UA, CFA nomination
• UA, Spring 2013 (Award Nominee)
• Steinway Artist Roster
• Spring 2011
• College of Fine Arts Small Grant
• Spring 2008