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Described as "one of
Australia's foremost pianists", Stephanie McCallum has enjoyed an
international career of over twenty five years, appearing on over
thirty six CDs (including twelve solo CD albums) and in
hundreds of live solo and concerto performances. Playing a
repertoire from the eighteenth to the twenty first century she is
especially noted for her performances of virtuosic music of the
nineteenth century, particularly the music of Liszt and Alkan, and
also for her advocacy of demanding contemporary solo and ensemble
scores. Her CDs of the music of Liszt, Weber, Alkan, Magnard,
Boulez, Xenakis and of contemporary Australian composers have
received widespread national and international acclaim (click here for
reviews). Stephanie's
most recent release is a disc of Beethoven's
complete Bagatelles,
including not only the popular Für Elise, but also the first
recording of a previously unpublished and uncatalogued piano piece
which is believed to be the last piano piece that Beethoven
wrote.
Stephanie McCallum is a
Senior Lecturer in piano at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music,
University of Sydney. She was born in Sydney, Australia, and
studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with Alexander
Sverjensky and with noted Liszt player, Gordon Watson. After
advanced studies in England with Alkan expert, Ronald Smith, she
presented a critically acclaimed Wigmore Hall debut in 1982 where
she gave what is believed to be the first performance of Alkan’s
Chants, Op. 70. She is also credited with the first complete
performance of Alkan’s Trois Grandes Études, Op. 76 in
London (see Ronald Smith: Alkan, who was Alkan?, V. II The
Music (London: Kahn & Averill, 1987), p. 90). Stephanie
McCallum has appeared extensively as a soloist in the United
Kingdom, France and Australia, has toured Europe with The Alpha
Centauri Ensemble. Recently she presented lecture recitals at the
Royal College of Music and the Purcell School, London.
Stephanie McCallum has made
many appearances as soloist in the Sydney Festival, and performed
in Brighton, Cheltenham, Huddersfield, and Sydney Spring Festivals.
A noted exponent of contemporary music, Stephanie was
a founding member of the contemporary ensembles AustraLYSIS
and Sydney Alpha Ensemble and was joint artistic director of the
latter since its inception. She has performed with such groups as
the Australian Chamber Orchestra, ELISION and The Australia
Ensemble. Stephanie has appeared as soloist on two CDs by the
Sydney Alpha Ensemble, Strange Attractions, and
Clocks (featuring works of Elena Kats-Chernin). In 2000, she
gave the world premier of Kats-Chernin’s Displaced Dances
with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, a piano concerto written
especially for her and has performed concertos with the Sydney,
Adelaide, Tasmanian and Canberra Symphony orchestras. With the
release in 2006 of a 2 CD set of Alkan's Douze études dans les
tons mineurs, (described by Hugh Macdonald as "the Alps and the
Himalayas of pianism, the one superimposed on the other") she is
the first pianist ever to have recorded both of Alkan's sets of
studies in the major and the minor keys (opus 35 and opus 39).
Stephanie’s solo recordings
for ABC Classics also include a disc of the music of Satie, a two
disc set of the complete piano sonatas of Weber, Illegal
Harmonies: The 20th Century Piano, and
Perfume, a best-selling disc of rare and exquisite French
piano music. Two CDs of music by Liszt, The Liszt Album and
From the Years of Pilgrimage were released in
2003.
(click here for a complete
list of Stephanie McCallum's recordings)
Stephanie’s recent
performances have included music by Elliot Carter (in honour of his
100th birthday) Beethoven, Satie, Schumann, and Alkan’s
Douze Etudes dans les tons mineurs Op.39, including several
acclaimed performances of the Symphony for piano solo and Concerto
for piano solo, described in the press as ‘titanic’,
‘awe-inspiring’, ‘stupendous’ and ‘virtuosic pianism of the highest
calibre’.
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