Rebecca Penneys leads a distinguished career as a recitalist, chamber musician, orchestral soloist and educator. For four decades her intelligent and insightful performances have held audiences spellbound. She combines a busy concert schedule with guidance for an international class of students at Eastman and Chautauqua, and gives master classes and seminars at other major teaching institutions worldwide. She has been Professor of Piano at Eastman since 1980 and Chairs the Piano Department at the Chautauqua Institution where she has been a resident artist and teacher for twenty-three consecutive seasons. She has created a program there which is unique in the world of piano instruction.
Born in Los Angeles, Rebecca made her debut at the age of nine and performed as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the age of eleven. At seventeen, after winning many young artist competitions in the United States, she was awarded the unprecedented Special Critics' Prize for her performances at the Seventh International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Poland. Subsequently, she won of the Most Outstanding Musician Prize at the Fifth Vianna Da Motta International Piano Competition (Portugal) and was Top Prizewinner in the Second Paloma O'Shea International Piano Competition (Spain). In 1974, she founded the acclaimed New Arts Trio, which won the prestigious Naumburg Award for Chamber Music (New York), on two separate occasions. The Trio has been Trio-in-Residence at the Chautauqua Institution since1978. Her teachers include Aube Tzerko, Leonard Stein, Rosina Lhevinne, Artur Rubinstein, Menahem Pressler, Gyorgy Sebok and Janos Starker.
As a performer Rebecca has appeared in East Asia, New Zealand, Australia, Europe, Israel, South America, and throughout the United States and Canada as soloist and chamber musician. She has performed numerous Sound/Color recitals exploring the connections between the sensory system and sound, color and music. In the last few seasons she was keynote speaker, performer and teacher at North Carolina Music Teachers Association Conventions in Raleigh, Charlotte, and Fayetteville, as well as Guest Teacher at the Tel Hai International Music Festival, Israel. She was also featured artist/teacher on the Pabst Theater Series, Milwaukee, Wisconsin and performed and taught in California, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New York City area, Wisconsin, Ontario and Quebec. She gave recitals and masterclasses at such schools as Roosevelt Musical College, New England Conservatory, Longy School, Grinnell College, Skidmore College and Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. She was guest artist at the American Liszt Society Convention, the University of Iowa’s Distinguished Artist Series, and Artist Series at L'Elegance in Sarasota, Florida.
This season concerts and master classes take her to Australia, South Korea, Beijing, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Bali. In 2000-2001 Rebecca will be going to Brazil and Colombia, South America andSouth Korea. Ms. Penneys gives world premieres in Rochester, New York on a regular basis. Closer to home she will be performing in Chautauqua, Toronto, Montreal, Buffalo, Milwaukee, Harrisburg and Olean. She performs annually with the Rochester Chamber Music Society, Chautauqua Chamber Music Society, Roycroft Festival and Salon Concerts at the Academy.
As a pedagogue, Ms. Penneys has received extensive recognition in academic and medical circles for her ability to teach an approach to keyboard technique (Motion and Emotion) that that allows pianists to achieve individual performance goals without physical strain or injury. In January 1999, she was interviewed about her teaching techniques for National Public Radio’s program the “Infinite Mind.” For the past sixteen years she has given annual “Motion and Emotion” summer seminars at Eastman. In 1993 the seminar consisted of a discussion and performance of the complete Chopin Etudes. In 1994 the seminar focused on Tension, Attention and Intention. The 1995 and 1996 seminars continued this theme and emphasized Pathways to Better Learning, Practicing, Performing and Teaching. The topic for 1997 was the Aural History of Piano Sound. In 1998 the seminar focused on a Portrait of Chopin; the 1999 theme was The Flexible Pianist. It explored solo and chamber/collaborative learning, rehearsal and performance techniques.
At the Chautauqua Festival, Ms. Penneys has created a mix of traditional and innovative classes designed to augment standard academic education. The program is dedicated to widening perspectives on performing and learning and strives to understand and encourage the uniqueness of each student's talents and career goals.
Ms Penneys’ PBS television program for the Musical Encounters series, The Piano: Its Sounds and Moods has been shown numerous times on national TV. She has been guest editor of a special summer issue of Seminars in Neurology, a publication devoted to music and medicine. Her article entitled "Motion and Emotion" appeared in the September 1992 issue of Clavier. She has co-authored a book (1994) with Dr.Raymond Gottlieb entitled The Fundamentals of Flow in Learning Music. Appearing soon will be an interview in Clavier magazine.
As adjudicator, Ms. Penneys' recent activities have included judging the Stravinsky Awards in Illinois. She was the American judge at the Vianna Da Motta International Piano Competition in Macao in April 1999.
Ms Penneys has three recent solo CD's available. The Voice of the Piano, works by Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Gershwin and The Complete Chopin Etudes both on the Centaur label, and All Brahms, a CD which includes the ten Hungarian Dances arranged by Brahms for two hands, Op.10 Ballads and Op.116 Fantasies on Fleur De Son Classics. An all-Chopin CD will be released this spring. The New Arts Trio has two new CD's on the Fleur De Son label: the Arensky Trios and Beethoven's Arrangements for Piano Trio - the 2nd Symphony & the Septet. Other Penneys recordings are available on the CBS-Sony, Pantheon, Orion labels, and the Society for Chamber Music, Rochester, New York.
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