The New York Times says that Steinway Artist Eugene Albulescu has “fingers of steel." His album Albulescu Plays Liszt won the Grand Prix du Disque Liszt. He has been on the international scene since 1994. Join us Monday, March 4th at 12:10 PM as Eugene Albulescu plays music of Scarlatti, Beethoven. and Rachmaninoff live from the WRTI 90.1 performance studio.Watch the broadcast video recorded live on the WRTI Facebook page
Eugene Albulescu performs as soloist with the Lehigh University Philharmonic Orchestra and the Bach Choir of Bethlehem on April 12 and 13, 8 PM, at Zoellner Arts Center, playing Mozart's Requiem and Piano Concerto K. 467 in C Major. More information.
Program:
Scarlatti: Allegro movement from Sonata in C Major K. 159
Beethoven: Andante Wo0 57 in F Major
Rachmaninoff: Prelude in G minor Opus 23 No. 5
He began playing the piano in Romania at age six, at the Enescu Music School in Bucharest. His family moved to New Zealand in 1984 to escape Romania’s Communist regime. He has performed with Barge Music and made his Carnegie Hall debut with the Liszt Piano Concerto Number 1 in 2001.
Albulescu has performed as conductor and soloist with numerous orchestras including the New Zealand Symphony, The Romanian National George Enescu Philharmonic, the New York Chamber Orchestra, the Manukau Symphony Orchestra and the Christchurch Symphony. Albulescu played at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, and was invited to perform at the White House for the Millennium celebrations.
Eugene Albulescu’s most recent release on the Naxos label with the New Zealand Symphony features the “Rock Concerto” composed for him by the New Zealand composer Jenny McLeod.
Eugene Albulescu is a Steinway Artist who holds the R. J. Ulrich Chair in Orchestral Studies at Lehigh University in Bethlehem PA, where he directs the Lehigh Philharmonic and teaches piano. He has led the Ballet Guild of Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania as music director for the past six years.
Eugene Albulescu is an award-winning conductor and pianist who combines a blazing technique with the artistic integrity and originality to express musical emotions at their most personal level. His emergence on the international scene came in 1994, when his solo piano debut recording (Albulescu Plays Liszt, MANU1446) earned him the Grand Prix du Disque Liszt, awarded for the best Liszt recording of the year, adding Albulescu’s name to that of legendary recipients such as Horowitz and Brendel. Noted New York Times critic Harold Schonberg praised Albulescu in the American Record Guide for his “infallible fingers of steel,” declaring that “nothing, anywhere, has any terrors for him.”
Since then he completed his musical studies at Indiana University where, at nineteen, he was the youngest person ever to teach as an assistant instructor. His conducting teachers and mentors have included Thomas Dunn and Jan Harrington, James Sedares, and Franz-Paul Decker.
