Gail Niwa

Pianist

Gail Niwa continues to thrill audiences as she did at the 1991 Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, where she became the only woman ever to win the Gold Medal. She also captured two additional awards, the Audience Prize and the Chamber Music Prize. She made her New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall in October, 1991.

Ms. Niwa won high praise for her recent recitals at Orchestra Hall in Chicago, on the Allied Arts Piano Series, and at the Ambassador Auditorium's Gold Medal Series in Pasadena. She also received outstanding reviews for her solo appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in February 1995, performing the Schumann; Piano Concerto with Sir Georg Solti conducting. "She reveled in Schumann's lyricism...Her tone is big and velvety, and the concerto's virtuoso declarations were both clearly etched and full of thunder," said the Chicago Sun-Times. "Soloist Gall Niwa ...achieved a heroic tone and perfect marksmanship," praised the Chicago Tribune.

Ms Niwa has won major prizes in the International Chopin Competition and the Mae Whitaker Competition. Her 1987 Kennedy Center debut followed her victory in the Washington International Competition. She has given recitals at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and in Athens, Montreal, Seoul, St. Louis and Kansas City, and has toured Scandinavia and the Far East.

The daughter of professional musicians, Ms Niwa was born in Chicago. She began piano studies with her mother and made her orchestral debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at age eight. She received a scholarship to the Juilliard School, where she earned her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees as a student of Adele Marcus. In addition to two more performances with the Chicago Symphony, Ms. Niwa has been soloist with the Utah, Memphis, Fort Wayne, Augusta, Reno, Evanston, and Grant Park Symphonies. In 1992. she was featured as soloist at Alice Tully Hall in Szymanowski's Sinfonia Concertante. Her recent performance schedule has included recitals and master classes at the TCU Cliburn Institute in Fort Worth, Texas, and performances of the Poulenc Two-Piano Concerto with the Northwest Indiana Symphony and the Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto with the Florida West Coast Symphony.

An outstanding ensemble player, Ms. Niwa toured Holland in November, 1996 as a member of the renowned Het Reziend Musik Geselschap. She won the prestigious Best Accompanist Award at the 1986 Tchaikovsky Competition for Violinists in Moscow. She has been featured soloist with the Kammergild Chamber Players, the Banff Festival Chamber Orchestra, The Highland Park Strings and the Ocean State Chamber Players. She is active as a chamber musician in New York City, and participates in several music festivals, including the Park City International Music Festival and Summer Chamber Music at the University of Rhode Island. Ms. Niwa can be heard with violinist David Kim on recordings for the Musical Heritage Society and Teldec labels.