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PRESS RELEASEFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Acclaimed Local Pianist to Participate in Bartok-Kabalevsky-Prokofiev International Competition PHILADELPHIA, Pa. (April 2, 2003) - - Pianist Matthew Bengtson will compete in the Bartok-Kabalevsky-Prokofiev International Competition on April 5, 2003 in Preston Hall at Radford University, Radford, VA. He will perform the required Bela Bartok’s Out of Doors Suite and Sergei Prokofiev's Sonata No. 2. The Bartok-Kabalevsky-Prokofiev International Competition runs from April 4-6 and will also feature in recital Gyorgy Sandor, an internationally renowned pianist who knew Bartok. BUSY PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE This is the first of several competitions for Mr. Bengtson, who will also be traveling to New York City to participate in the Honens International Competition later this month. A busy performer, he made his third recital appearance at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall last December, performing the works of the early 20th century composers Szymanowski, Debussy and Scriabin. The last couple of months have seen Mr. Bengtson performing in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York and Kansas as both concert pianist (with the Ridgefield, CT Symphony Orchestra) and recitalist. Also a music theorist, forte pianist and harpsichordist, Mr. Bengtson is a champion of rarely performed music. He read a paper entitled “The Mazurkas of Karol Szymanowski” as a Lowens Award finalist at the Capital Chapter of The American Musicological Society. In 2002 he recorded commercially all of Szymanowski’s mazurkas on compact disc. A winner of numerous international and national piano awards and fellowships, Mr. Bengtson won the 2000 Otto R. Stahl Memorial Prize at Cornell University and was a Timothy Faron Award and Braverman Grant recipient at Harvard University. After graduating from Harvard, he attended Peabody Institute in Baltimore, MD where he earned his masters and doctoral degrees in piano performance and minored in harpsichord. Last summer he attended the École Américaine at Fontainebleau, where he studied a variety of French piano and chamber music and was awarded the Prix de la Ville de Fontainebleau for piano performance. Mr. Bengtson serves on the faculty of Settlement Music School in Philadelphia and the piano staff of the Curtis Institute of Music. He takes time out from a demanding schedule by competing in chess and golf. A FIDE master (FM) and National Master (NM), he competes internationally with some of the world's finest chess masters and last summer won the Midland Open in England. He has also won several amateur golf tournaments and has a 3 handicap. to send e-mail to Matthew Bengtson. Copyright
2002-2003 Matthew Bengtson |