ABOUT THE ARTIST

In more than three decades of concertizing, American pianist Marcantonio Barone has given solo recitals at the Metropolitan Museum and Weill Recital Hall in New York and at the National Gallery in Washington, on the recital series of the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, at the Ravinia Festival and at San Francisco’s Midsummer Mozart Festival, at the Wigmore Hall in London, the Rachmaninoff Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, and the Great Hall of the St. Petersburg Filarmoniya, and in various cities in Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Malta.  In the 1980s and ’90s, he frequently performed as soloist with major orchestras on four continents, in collaboration with such conductors as Sir Simon Rattle, Sergiu Comissiona, Leon Fleisher, Arthur Fiedler, Barry Tuckwell, Antonio de Almeida, and Vladimir Ziva. 

A prizewinner at both the 1985 Busoni and 1987 Leeds International Piano Competitions, Marcantonio Barone participated in Affiliate Artists’ renowned Xerox Pianists Program, under whose auspices he performed in residencies with a variety of American orchestras, from 1985 through 1993.  He was affiliated with Astral Artistic Services, a nonprofit organization based in Philadelphia that guides the careers of outstanding classical musicians, from 1993 until 1999.  He was awarded a Solo/Recitalist Fellowship by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts in 1994 and was named the 1996-97 recipient of the Philadelphia Musical Fund Society Award.

Mr. Barone has been a member of the Lenape Chamber Ensemble since 1987.  He performs annually at the Delaware Chamber Music Festival and with the Craftsbury Chamber Players, the Wister Quartet, and the mixed ensemble 1807 and Friends, and he has performed often as a guest artist at the Philadelphia Orchestra Chamber Music Concerts.  He is a member of Orchestra 2001, with whom he has toured in Russia, Great Britain, and Denmark.\

Marcantonio Barone has given the world première performances of works for piano by composers including George Rochberg, David Finko, Ulysses Kay, David Crumb, Andrew Rudin, Philip Maneval, and Gerald Levinson.  He was also the pianist in the world première performances and recordings of River of Life, A Journey Beyond Time, Unto the Hills, Winds of Destiny, and Voices from a Forgotten World, the first five volumes of George Crumb’s monumental American Songbook for vocal soloists, percussion quartet, and piano; he participated in the première of Volume VI, Voices from the Morning of the Earth, in 2008.

He serves as head of the piano department and assistant director of the Bryn Mawr Conservatory of Music, where he has taught since 1980.  In addition, he teaches piano, keyboard harmony, and chamber music at Swarthmore College.

In September of 2006, he conducted Orchestra 2001 in a performance of George Rochberg’s Transcendental Variations, presented in the composer’s memory.

Prior to his graduate studies with Leon Fleisher at The Peabody Conservatory of Music, where he was awarded the Artist Diploma in 1985, Marcantonio Barone studied for eight years with Eleanor Sokoloff at The Curtis Institute of Music.  Among his other distinguished teachers were Harriet Elsom Rothstein, Taylor Redden, Susan Starr, and Leonard Shure.
     
Mr. Barone is a Steinway Artist.  His recordings are available on the Albany, Bridge, and Capstone labels.