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PRESS RELEASEFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Matthew Bengtson to contend with pianists worldwide in prestigious Honens Competition Local pianist Matthew Bengtson will participate in the Honens International Piano Competition on April 27 at 9:10 p.m. in New York City at Agnes Auditorium in the Lighthouse Foundation, 111 E. 59th Street (between Park and Lexington Avenues). He will perform Mozart’s Rondo in F, KV 494, Szymanowski’s “Sheherazade” from Masques, op. 34 no. 1, Berio’s Luftklavier and Ligeti’s Etude no. 10, “Der Zauberlehrling.” Mr. Bengtson is one of 36 competing pianists whose performances will be videotaped during the preliminary rounds at each of three competition sites for judging. The preliminary rounds will also be held in Hamburg, Germany and Calgary, Canada. Calgary will also host the semifinal and final rounds. The Honens International Piano Competition is the dream of Esther Honens, who bequeathed $5 million toward building one of the world’s great piano competitions. Her desire was to reward world-class artistic achievement and bestow the international event as a legacy to the people of Calgary, Canada. The Honens competition is acknowledged as one of the top ten piano competitions in the world. Honens represents the latest event of the performance circuit for Mr. Bengtson. Earlier this month, he competed in the Bartok-Kabalevsky-Prokofiev International Competition at Radford University. 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. Last December, he made his third recital appearance at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. Mr. Bengtson has won numerous international and national piano awards and fellowships. In 2000 he was awarded 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
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