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Benita
Meshulam received her early musical training from Sidney Foster in Bloomington,
Indiana. After studying piano with Karen Shaw and chamber music with Janos
Starker and Gyorgy Sebok at Indiana University, she moved to New York to
complete her studies with Richard Goode and Bernard Rose.
Benita Meshulams recitals have taken her throughout her native United States and Europe. In New York, where she lives, she has performed complete programs of Albeniz and Granados at Merkin Hall, Steinway Hall, The Spanish Institute, Rockefeller University, and Sarah Lawrence University. Ms. Meshulam has been an avid promoter of contemporary music, and has premiered works at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Robin Hood Dell in Philadelphia, and the Dallas Music Hall. Londons Time-Out Magazine hailed her as a champion of contemporary music after a performance of Aaron Coplands Piano Sonata. A versatile musician, Ms. Meshulam has appeared for five consecutive seasons at The Beethoven Festival in Long Island, New York, and has toured as a member of The International Piano Quartet. Her performances of the "Goyescas" of Granados have taken her to Toulouse, Boulogne sur Gesse, and Terme dArmagnac in France as well as the Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago and Merkin Hall in New York. Benita Meshulam feels a particular affinity for the music of Albeniz and Granados. Her familys Sephardic tradition and language date back to roots in pre-Christian Spain. The depth and intensity of her approach to Spanish music have astounded audiences for well over a decade Ms. Meshulam
has been playing recital programs throughout the United States and in
Scotland, including performances at Caramoor, Santa Fe, Cincinnati, Indianapolis,
Music Mountain Festival in Connecticut, and the Historical Piano Series
in Ashburnham, Massachusetts. She also performed at the Rubinstein Commemoration
Concerts in New York City. Ms. Meshulam's recordings have been heard on
David Dubal's "Reflections from the Keyboard" program
on WQXR and she has been a guest of John Schaeffer on NPR. Upcoming recitals
include City University of New York, concerts in Stockbridge, Massachusetts,
and Scarsdale, New York. Ms. Meshulam
authored an article on Montsalvatge for the Fall 2001 issue of Piano
Today Magazine. This season she has performed the Montsalvatge "Concerto
Breve" and the Falla "Nights in the Gardens of Spain" with
orchestras, as well as premiering some new pieces of Montsalvatge. Montsalvatge
has enthusiastically praised Ms. Meshulam's recording of his work, stating
that her performance was the highest level of playing, and that she achieved
the exact character of each piece as the composer had intended. In the spring of 2005, Ms. Meshulam gave two highly successful lecture-recitals for the Foundation for Iberian Music, CUNY Graduate Center series "Piano Conversations: The Catalan Piano Tradition." Her latest recording, the complete piano music of Manuel de Falla, has been released as a two CD set by Brilliant Classics of Amsterdam. |
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