About the Festival

Pianofest in the Hamptons, directed by Paul Schenly, is a summer festival that offers exceptionally concentrated study to a small group of pianists. The teaching at Pianofest stresses an ethic of support rather than competition: in addition to emphasizing the solo repertoire, students accompany each other in concertos and explore the duo piano literature. Pianofest offers an opportunity for pianists to nurture friendships, give performances, and form lasting connections with the Hamptons community.

Pianofest provides its students with full scholarship, room and board, and a $400 stipend. 

The East End of Long Island attracts visitors from around the world, while local residents include renowned authors, artists, and musicians. The beaches and the seacoast of the Hamptons are considered among the most beautiful in the world. Students enjoy summer in the Hamptons, known for famous nightlife as well as lovely natural settings. East Hampton Village and beaches are within walking distance of the practice house.

Teaching Environment

Pianofest students get near-daily lessons with Pianofest’s director, Paul Schenly. Renowned performers and teachers are in residence for days at a time to work intensively with students, with lessons open for fellow participants to attend. This creates an atmosphere of an intense artistic colony where insights are constantly shared. Past guest artists include Jerome Lowenthal, Sergei Babayan, Yefim Bronfman, Andre Watts, Richard Goode, Anton Nel, Claude Frank, Arie Vardi, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Awadagin Pratt, Orion Weiss, Ursula Oppens, John O'Conor, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and Pavel Nersessian.

In addition, there are two “Artists-in-Residence” – acclaimed Pianofest alums returning to share their professional experience, helping student acclimate to the new environment of Pianofest and encourage other artistic skills like sight-reading, two-hand, four-hand and even more hands music. They also inspire and serve as examples to the Pianofest students (all of whom are still in school) of what a musical life entails, and the possibilities, responsibilities, and pleasures of being a musician.

Performance Opportunities

Many students have found Pianofest an ideal place to try out concert programs and to prepare for competitions. Students participate in weekly public concerts at the Avram Theater in at SUNY Stony Brook and are often engaged to perform at Hamptons music festivals and other local venues, such as the Southampton Cultural Center, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, the Montauk Library, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the Parrish Art Museum, the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, and more. Students also perform in elegant private homes. Selected Pianofest performances are professionally recorded for student use and sometimes television broadcasts. Festival events have been featured in over a dozen news publications as well as ClassicFM.

Alumni Successes

Pianofest students have gone on to make their mark at both the national and international level. They have earned accolades at the world’s most prestigious competitions. In New York alone, our esteemed alumni have received the Avery Fisher Career Grant three times, and others have won the Naumburg (4 winners) and Concert Artists Guild competitions (3 winners) as well as Young Concert Artists auditions (3 winners).

Alumni triumphs are happening around the world every year, with top awards at Cliburn International Competition (2 finalists) and Gilmore Foundation (2 winners), along with first prizes at the Geneva, Cleveland, Honens, New Orleans, Hilton Head, Beijing, Santander, Vendome, Palm Beach, Messiaen, Cincinnati, Robert Casadesus, Scottish, and Hamamatsu international piano competitions.

These accolades have led to glittering debuts in the world’s greatest halls, Grammy-nominated recordings, and thriving careers in performance and teaching. Alumni hold piano professorships at major conservatories including the The Juilliard School and the Peabody Institute, and serve as departmental chairs at the Curtis Institute of Music, Northwestern University, San Francisco Conservatory, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and the Cleveland Institute of Music.

The unique creative atmosphere at Pianofest has given rise to several of today’s leading ensembles as well as pathbreaking projects. The Anderson and Roe piano duo, now one of the most recognizable in the world, was formed at Pianofest, where members Greg Anderson and Elizabeth Joy Roe first met. Hunter Noack performs to audiences often unfamiliar to piano recitals, in the series he started, "In a Landscape: Classical Music in the Wild," which presents concerts in forests, fields, and riverbanks. Susan Zhang performs in The Concert Truck, a traveling classical piano pop-up, featured around the country and on Public Radio. These are delightful examples of taking piano music out of the concert hall and to wide audiences. Zsolt Bognár founded and directs "Living the Classical Life," an ongoing series of over a hundred filmed interviews and intimate, one-of-a-kind performances with many of the greatest living classical musicians.

Several alums have been particularly acclaimed for their performances of American music. Michelle Cann’s 2022 recording of the Florence Price concerto won a Grammy Award, and Andrew Russo’s CD of music by John Corigliano was nominated. Blair McMillen’s American music series at Columbia University’s Miller Theater has received rave reviews from The New York Times and other outlets.

We congratulate Michelle Cann, recently appointed to the Curtis Faculty, and Kate Soyeon Lee, recently appointed to the Juilliard Faculty.

We also congratulate Sergei Babayan, a distinguished Pianofest alum from 1990 as a participant and later as faculty, for his extensive work with Martha Argerich. The two of them recently recorded a two-piano program for Deutsche Grammophon.