Liza Stepanova

Piano

Pianist Liza Stepanova is in demand as a soloist, collaborator and educator. She has performed extensively in Europe, most recently, as a soloist with the Southwest German Philharmonic and in duo recital at the Berlin Museum of Musical Instruments. In the United States, she has appeared in Weill and Zankel Recital Halls at Carnegie; Alice Tully Hall, Merkin and Steinway halls in NYC; Kennedy Center and The Smithsonian in Washington; and live on WQXR New York, WFMT Chicago and WETA Washington.

Stepanova has twice been a soloist with the Juilliard Orchestra led by James DePreist and Nicholas McGegan and was a top prizewinner at the Liszt-Garrison, Juilliard Concerto, Steinway, and Ettlingen competitions. As a member of the Lysander Piano Trio, she won the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh International Competition and received the Grand Prize at the 2011 Coleman Competition. Upcoming engagements for the Trio include debut recitals at Carnegie Weill Recital Hall and Merkin Concert Hall in NYC, performances on prestigious concert series at Purdue University and UCLA as well as the release of a debut CD.

Liza Stepanova studied art song collaboration with Wolfram Rieger, Margo Garrett, and Brian Zeger, and was invited by the late Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau to perform in several of his masterclasses including the Hugo-Wolf Tage festival in Austria. Between 2010-2013, she was a founding member of the SongFusion ensemble, for which she curated six innovative programs combining art song with visual art and recitation. She frequently performs in Joy in Singing concerts at Bruno Walter Auditorium and on the Trinity Wall Street American Art Song series curated by Paul Sperry. Most recently, Stepanova was awarded the Suzie Chereau Prize for best pianist at the 2013 Positively Poulenc! Art Song Competition.

Stepanova performed as a soloist and chamber musician at the international festivals at Castleton, La Jolla, Music@Menlo and Davos (Switzerland), and has been on the faculty at SongFest at the Colburn School in Los Angeles since 2011. Deeply committed to new music, Stepanova has performed with AXIOM, New Juilliard, and Mimesis ensembles, worked with many distinguished composers, including Robert Beaser, Gabriela Lena Frank, John Harbison, Lowell Liebermann and John Musto, and premiered works by Tom Cipullo and Libby Larsen.

Stepanova received her DMA from The Juilliard School in 2012 with a Richard F. French Award for an outstanding dissertation. Previously a graduate of the Hanns Eisler Academy in Berlin, Germany, she studied with George Sava, Jerome Lowenthal, Seymour Lipkin, and Joseph Kalichstein, and performed in masterclasses for Alfred Brendel, Daniel Barenboim and Andras Schiff. Stepanova joined the faculty at The Juilliard School in 2012 and begins her position as Iva Dee Hiatt Visiting Artist in Piano at Smith College in the fall of 2013.