Biography
Credited with "piano playing at its most awesome" (The New York Times), pianist Steven Mayer has brought the unique repertoire of jazz icons Art Tatum and Fats Waller, and such music as Mozart, Liszt and Ives, to thousands of listeners worldwide. Mayer has performed with the Leipzig Gewandhaus and Emmanuel Krivine in Liszt's Concerto in Eb; has appeared with Leonard Slatkin and the Minnesota Orchestra in Gottschalk's Grand Tarantelle and with co-soloist John Browning in Mozart's Concerto K.365 under Raymond Leppard; performed with the San Francisco Symphony under Edo de Waart and Herbert Blomstedt in Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and the Reger Piano Concerto; with Gerard Schwarz conducting the New York Chamber Symphony in Beethoven's Concerto No. 4; in a performance of Beethoven's Concerto No. 3 with the Rotterdam Philharmonic and James Conlon; with Dennis Russell Davies conducting Leon Kirchner's Concerto No. 2 with the American Composer's Orchestra in Carnegie Hall; performed Mozart Concertos K.595, K.414 and K.482 with the St. Louis and Baltimore Symphonies under conductors Catherine Comet and David Atherton; appeared with the Amsterdam Philharmonic under Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi in Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 3; performed with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra and Antonio Ros-Marba in Haydn's Concerto in G; performed Mozart's Concerto K.595 with Hugh Wolff conducting the Atlanta Symphony; with the Dallas Symphony under Walter Hendl in Ravel's Concerto in G; with the Boston Pops and Keith Lockhart in Liszt's Totentanz; and with the Prague Symphony under Jiri Belohlavek in Dvorak's Piano Concerto on the Carnegie Hall International Orchestra Series.
Winner of the Grand Prix du Disque Liszt for his ASV world premiere recording of Liszt's Concerto Opus Posthumous and De Profundis with the London Symphony under Tamas Vasary, Steven Mayer gave the world premiere of Liszt's De Profundis with the Hague Philharmonic and Jacek Kaspszic in the Hague. Mr. Mayer also performed the European premiere of Liszt's Concerto Opus Posthumous as well as Liszt's Concerto in Eb with the Hague Philharmonic under Hans Vonk at the Interlakner and Visp festivals in Switzerland and at La Chaise Dieu in France. In 2002, Steven Mayer began a lifetime association with Naxos Records. In 2011, Gramophone chose Mayer's Naxos recording of Charles Ives' "Concord" Sonata as one of the top three in its 50-year discography of the work.
Mayer is Professor of Piano at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Mannes and Hunter Colleges of Music in New York. He has served as Visiting Lecturer in Piano at UCLA, Professor of Piano at the Manhattan School of Music, and is currently Associate Professor with Tenure at the University of Denver's Lamont School of Music.