Amy Dissanayake

Sunday, November 24, 3:00 PM

Kosciuszko Foundation
15 East 65th Street (Between Madison and Fifth Avenues)
New York City, 10021

Tickets: $10 - $25
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"extraordinary... mastery of what lay on the dense, printed page, and beyond."
John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune

"...ferociously talented pianist..."
Wynne Delacoma, Chicago Sun Times

Program:
David Rakowski – Etudes Books II, III, IV

Though her repertoire ranges from Baroque to contemporary, Amy Dissanayake is especially committed to performing music of living composers. Her recording of David Rakowski's Piano Etudes Books II and III for Bridge Records will be released in 2002; she will record Books I and IV in June of 2003. This recital, which will include "live program notes" given by the composer, will be repeated later this season in Chicago and Boston. Ms. Dissanayake has premiered many solo and chamber works, and has worked with such composers as Pierre Boulez, George Crumb, Augusta Read Thomas, Joan Tower, David Lang, Simon Bainbridge, and David Rakowski. She appears regularly on the Chicago Symphony's MusicNOW series, and has performed with the Chicago Contemporary Players, Chicago Pro Musica, the Chicago Chamber Musicians, and Klang.

Amy Dissanayake has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in the United States, Europe, Asia and Africa. Her selection in 1993 as a United States Artistic Ambassador led to a highly acclaimed concert tour of eight countries in Africa and South Asia, where she gave solo recitals, lectures, and master-classes as part of a broad-based cultural exchange program sponsored by the United States Information Agency. Ms. Dissanayake served as the principal pianist of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago for six years, and has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as an extra keyboardist. Awards include a stipend prize at the 2000 Darmstadt Internationale Fereinkurse für Neue Musik, first prizes in the American Opera Society of Chicago competition, the Union League and Civic Arts Foundation piano competition, the Farwell Competition, and the Rose Fay Thomas Competition, which led to a solo performance in Orchestra Hall, Chicago. Ms. Dissanayake has also been a prizewinner in the Joanna Hodges International Piano Competition and the Frinna Awerbuch International Piano Competition, and made her New York City recital debut at the Donnell Library in 1992.

She has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Chicago Chamber Orchestra, New Hampshire Philharmonic, and the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka, and has been featured on Chicago's classical music radio station, WFMT. Other recent performances include the June in Buffalo Festival, the Rotterdam Music Biennial in The Netherlands, and solo recitals in the People's Republic of China. Amy Dissanayake studied with Ursula Oppens at Northwestern University, where she earned a Doctorate in Piano Performance in 1999.