Judith Lynn Stillman to Perform with Renowned Quintets in Dazzling Performances

Internationally acclaimed pianist Judith Lynn Stillman will be performing with the accomplished Cassatt String Quartet of Manhattan and the Brandeis University-based Lydian String Quartet in two rare upcoming concerts.

On Dec. 5, Stillman will perform the Dvorak Piano Quintet in A Major with the all-female Cassatt String Quartet, which has travelled worldwide and has been awarded numerous fellowships in its 26-year history. The concert will be held at the Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts at Rhode Island College, where Stillman is the Artist-in-Residence. 

The music of Bravo Bohemia! will feature warm, lyrical melodies from Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Shostakovich that audiences typically love and is a perfect celebration for the holidays. The shows are scheduled for 1 and 7:30 p.m. Admission is free with a suggested donation of $10.

The second show, slated for March 27 2013, will see Stillman joining forces with the Lydian String Quartet, all renown music at Brandeis University, to perform a Schumann Piano Quintet entitled Bravo Bavaria! Shows are also 1 and 7:30 p.m. at the Nazarian Center.  

"The Dvorak A Major Piano Quintet, Op.81 and the Schumann E-flat Piano Quintet, Op. 44 are two of the most magnificent and significant chamber music masterworks ever composed,” Stillman said recently of why the artists chose to perform these pieces of music. “Both The Lydian and Cassatt quintets reflect the heights of the composers' respective creative imaginations, each using a full palette of expressive lyricism and bravura techniques, evoking drama from melancholy to exuberance, yearning, shimmering, all infused with an inexhaustible wealth of fascinating musical ideas." 

These are the latest performances of Stillman’s famed career. Currently based at Rhode Island College, Stillman is a recent visiting artist-teacher at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, She also has a new CD soon to be released based on a collaboration with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman and Michael Reynolds, the cellist of the Muir String Quartet (in Residence at Boston University) to record on the EcoClassics label. Proceeds from sales will be used to supply musical instruments to schoolchildren, via the Classics for Kids Foundation. 

Trained as a soloist, Stillman discovered that the art of collaboration in chamber music, choral conducting and musical directing, could expand her horizons and her artistic proficiency. “My energy blossoms exponentially when I’m making music with others,” Stillman said.

Stillman has a decades-long career in the arts. She showed a prodigious musical talent by playing her brother’s piano lesson repertoire by ear at age 3, and received all the family support possible, helping to catapult her into the accomplished, internationally famed and award-winning performing pianist she is today. 

Stillman's early exposure to intensive musical study began at The Jullliard School at age 10 on scholarship. A year later, she was posting flyers around her neighborhood, advertising piano lessons: 85 cents for a half hour. The evolution of her teaching has culminated in giving master classes in the world's most prestigious music conservatories, such as the Prague Conservatory of Music.  She graduated from high school at age 15 and went on to obtain Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Juilliard and was the youngest person admitted to their doctoral program. When she completed the Juilliard doctorate, she was awarded the Dethier Prize for outstanding pianist.  

Stillman has received critical acclaim performing at venues including Alice Tully Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. She has been awarded several fellowships and won scores of national and international competitions. Stillman received rave reviews for her duet recording with double Grammy-winner Wynton Marsalis which landed her on the Top Ten Billboard charts.