Guest Artist: Awadagin Pratt, piano

We are thrilled to welcome the critically acclaimed pianist Awadagin Pratt as a guest
artist, for a dynamic piano recital on Tuesday evening, followed by a masterclass with
WFU piano students on Wednesday morning.

Through his kaleidoscopic career as a pianist, conductor, educator, and curator of
memorable musical moments, Awadagin Pratt shines a light on voices of the past and
present, amplifies the diverse talents of today’s brightest creative minds, and paves the
way for a new generation of inventive musical artists.

Since winning the Naumburg International Piano Competition in 1992 and receiving a
1994 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Pratt has received acclaim for delivering “forceful,
imaginative, and precisely tinted” performances (The Washington Post) and been hailed
as “one of the great and distinctive American pianists and conductors of our time”
(WGBH). He has appeared at addresses as familiar as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (at
the invitation of the Clinton and Obama administrations) and Sesame Street (at the
invitation of Big Bird).

He has performed with the Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, the New York Philharmonic, and many others; in solo recitals at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center; and in chamber music collaborations with cellist Zuill Bailey, pianist Simone Dinnerstein, and the Harlem and St. Lawrence String Quartets. His 2023 recording, Stillpoint, explores the truth and beauty in T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets through new works by Tyshawn Sorey, Paola Prestini, Peteris Vasks, Jessie Montgomery, Jonathan Bailey Holland, Alvin Singleton, and Judd Greenstein.