Menahem Pressler

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Menahem Pressler (born 16 December 1923, Magdeburg) is a Jewish-born German pianist.

Menahem Pressler is the founding member of the Beaux Arts Trio, an ensemble widely considered to be the world's leading piano trio for more than 50 years. Pressler currently resides in Bloomington, Indiana with his wife Sara. There he teaches at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and holds the Dean Charles H. Webb Chair in Music. His musical precision and vast knowledge of piano and chamber music literature have gained him an international reputation as a remarkable teacher.

For three decades, Pressler has been closely tied to the Vermont Mozart Festival, which was founded in 1974 by his friend and agent Melvin Kaplan. Pressler has frequently performed at the Festival both as a soloist and in chamber settings; he has also led immensely popular workshops. Pressler is thus especially well known and loved throughout the state of Vermont.

[edit] Awards and Recognitions

Pressler has received numerous awards including England's Record of the Year (1997), Winner of the Debussy Competition, Four-time Grammy Nominee, National Society of Arts and Letters' Lifetime Achievement and Gold Medal of Merit awards, and was the editor of the last piano sonata manuscript of Sergei Prokofiev. He holds honorary doctorate degrees from both the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the North Carolina School of the Arts. In addition to over fifty recordings with the Beaux Arts Trio, Pressler has produced over thirty personal recordings.