Paul Hersh
415.503.6360.
Equally active in piano and viola, Paul Hersh studied viola with William Primrose and piano with Leonard Shure and Edward Steuermann. From 1961–1971 he was violist and pianist of the Lenox Quartet and made his piano debut at Carnegie Recital Hall in 1964. Mr. Hersh, who attended Yale University, teaches poetry and literature in addition to piano and chamber music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Mr. Hersh is a former faculty member of Grinnell College and SUNY at Binghamton, and has been artist-in-residence and visiting faculty at the University of California at Davis, Temple University, Oregon State University, University of Western Washington, and the University of Montana. He has given concert tours in Taiwan, China, Korea, and Russia, and has recorded on the RCA, CRI, Desto, Orion, Dover and Arch Street labels. Mr. Hersh has performed at the Berkshire, Aspen, Skaneateles, Moab, and Olympic Music Festivals, as well as the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Spoleto (Italy) Festival of Two Worlds, and the Caramoor Center in New York, and has taught and performed at Kneisel Hall.
Sharon Mann
415.503.6200 x6751
sharonmann@aol.com.
Dr. Mann is widely respected for her penetrating interpretations of Bach’s keyboard music; her recording of the Six Partitas has recently been re-released by Cappella Records. She holds degrees from The Juilliard School, Stanford and Northwestern Universities. Early studies were with Rudolph Ganz, Isador Buchhalter, Irwin Freundlich, Rosalyn Tureck and Dorothy Taubman. Dr. Mann was recipient of the George Eastman Fellowship, artistic director of the Governor’s Series in Ohio, co-producer of the Soviet Emigre Orchestra, Switzerland’s Somermusikwochen, and artistic director of the Junior Bach Festival. She has served on the faculties of California Summer Music Festival and Itzhak Perlman’s Perlman Music Program. Her recent master classes were in Greece, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Utah and California. In summer 2009, Dr. Mann will teach in Birklehof, Germany.
Yoshikazu Nagai
Chair, Piano Department
415.503.6242
ynagai@sfcm.edu.
Praised by audiences and critics alike for his fresh interpretations and dramatic presentation style, Yoshikazu Nagai has performed as soloist and chamber musician internationally, including recently acclaimed recitals in Taiwan’s National Recital Hall, Hong Kong, Italy, Canada, Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theatre, Carnegie Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Seattle’s Benaroya Hall, Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., NPR’s Performance Today, and at the Aspen, Sarasota and Spoleto music festivals. A winner of numerous international competitions, including first prize at the 2002 Washington International Piano Competition, he is recognized by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, and gives frequent master classes throughout the United States and Asia. Mr. Nagai’s students have been top prizewinners of several national and international piano and chamber music competitions. Principal teachers include John Perry at Rice University, Paul Schenly at the Cleveland Institute of Music (M.M.), Sergei Babyan and Duane Hulbert. Mr. Nagai is a summer piano faculty member at the Eastern Music Festival and School, the Beijing International Music Festival and Academy at the Central Conservatory in China, and former piano faculty member at the Interlochen Arts Academy. He joined the faculty of the Conservatory in 2006.
Jon Nakamatsu
piano
American pianist Jon Nakamatsu continues to draw unanimous praise as a true aristocrat of the keyboard, whose playing combines elegance, clarity, and electrifying power. In 1997, Mr. Nakamatsu was named Gold Medalist of the Tenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the first American to achieve this distinction since 1981. He has collaborated with conductors including James Conlon, Marek Janowski, Raymond Leppard, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and Osmo Vänskä; and with chamber ensembles including the Brentano, Tokyo, Kuss, Jupiter, Cypress, Prazak and Ying String Quartets. He has appeared in recital at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and venues throughout the U.S. and Europe. With clarinetist Jon Manasse, Mr. Nakamatsu performs as the Manasse/Nakamatsu Duo, which also serves as Artistic Directors of the esteemed Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival in Massachusetts.
Mr. Nakamatsu has released thirteen CDs on harmonia mundi usa. His all-Gershwin recording with Jeff Tyzik and the Rochester Philharmonic featuring Rhapsody in Blueand the Concerto in F rose to number three on Billboard's classical music charts. The New York Times chose his recording of Brahms' Clarinet Sonatas with Jon Manasse as one of its top releases of 2008.
Mr. Nakamatsu has served on multiple international piano competition juries and been invited as a guest speaker at numerous institutions including the Van Cliburn Foundation, Stanford University and the Juilliard School. He studied privately with Marina Derryberry and has worked with Karl Ulrich Schnabel, son of the great pianist Artur Schnabel. He is a graduate of Stanford University with a bachelor's degree in German Studies and a master's degree in Education.
