Earl Wild

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Earl Wild (born November 26, 1915) is an American pianist known especially for his transcriptions of classical music and jazz. Wild is recognized widely as a leading virtuoso of his generation. (Harold C. Schonberg called him a supervirtuoso in the Horowitz class).^[1]

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Wild was a precocious child and studied under Selmar Janson, Simon Barere and Egon Petri, amongst others. As a teenager, he started making transcriptions of romantic music and composition.

He is said to have been the first pianist to perform a recital on U.S. television (in 1939, in his capacity as staff pianist for NBC), and also the first pianist to stream a performance over the internet (in 1997).

In 1942, Arturo Toscanini invited him for a performance of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, the first for orchestra and soloist, which was a resounding success and made him a household name. During World War II, Wild served in the United States Navy as a musician and after the war moved to the newly formed American Broadcasting Company (ABC) as a staff pianist, conductor and composer until 1968. Wild is renowned for masterclasses he held throughout the world, from Seoul, Beijing, Tokyo to the United States.

Wild, who is openly gay, ^[2] lives in Columbus, Ohio with his partner, Michael Rolland Davis.

[edit] References

1. ^ Harold C. Schonberg, The Great Pianists from Mozart to the Present, Simon & Schuster, 1963/1987
2. ^ New York Times, November 27, 2005 "90? Who's 90? Just Give Him a Piano"

[edit] Sources

http://www.sonyclassical.com/artists/wild/bio.html http://www.wosu.org/archive/jfk/local.php

[edit] External Sites

http://www.earlwild.com/

http://ivoryclassics.com/