Eminent Pianist Eugen Indjic ’65 to Perform

Maestro to play in Cochran Chapel, teach masterclass

April 28, 2010 —World-renowned pianist Eugen Indjic will return to the Phillips Academy campus on Friday, May 7, where he will give a public performance in Cochran Chapel at 7 p.m. On Saturday, May 8, Indjic will teach a special masterclass to Andover music students at 11 a.m. in the Timken Room in Graves Hall. Both events are free and open to the public.

Admired and praised by such masters as Arthur Rubinstein, Leonard Bernstein, and Emil Gilels, the French-American pianist of Russian origin is a laureate of some of the world’s most prestigious piano competitions, including fourth prize at the 1970 International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition, third prize at the 1972 Leeds International Pianoforte Competition, and second prize at the 1974 Arthur Rubinstein
International Piano Master Competition.

“Eugen Indjic is simply one of the world’s finest pianists. As a Phillips Academy alumnus, he has most generously agreed to come this year—the 200th anniversary of the births of Chopin and Schumann—and give a recital at the school,” said Christopher Walter, music instructor and director of performance. “Mr. Indjic has visited us twice in my time here at PA, but this will be the first time that he will play the magnificent new Steinway in Cochran Chapel. With such an instrument, we will be able to hear all the range and subtlety of his artistry.”

Already performing on television by the age of 10, Indjic made his first recording at age 12 of Beethoven’s “Diabelli Variations” for RCA Victor on Sergei Rachmaninov’s own piano. At 13, Indjic made his first appearance with the Washington Symphony Orchestra. After Indjic graduated from PA in 1965— the Academy’s first professional pianist—conductor Erich Leinsdorf invited him to play Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Indjic, at age 18, became the youngest pianist to have performed with that orchestra.

The young pianist briefly attended the Juilliard School before transferring to Harvard, where he studied music theory and composition with Lorin Berman and Leon Kirchner. In 1968, he met Arthur Rubinstein and continued to consult with him in New York and Paris over the course of the next decade. Between 1965 and 1972, he studied privately with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and Clifford Curzon in Fontainebleau. Before enrolling in the Chopin competition, he also worked with Witold Małcużyński in Majorca and Konstanty Schmaeling in Paris.

His discography includes works by Chopin (piano concertos, complete ballades and mazurkas, Sonata in B flat minor and in B minor, Berceuse, and Fantasie in F minor), Débussy, Schumann, and Prokofiev, as well as Beethoven and Saint-Saëns (performed on Rachmaninov’s piano in the RCA Victor studio).

He is currently a visiting professor at the Sweelinck Conservatoire in Amsterdam.