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Pianist Esther Budiardjo has received considerable acclaim from many
of America's most respected music critics. Richard Dyer of The Boston
Globe, who selected her Boston debut recital as "The Best of 1997" wrote,
"Her playing summoned laughter and tears; made the mind work, the spirit
soar." Of Ms. Budiardjo's New York debut performance at Lincoln Center,
Harris Goldsmith of American Record Guide noted, "Her masterly account
had a mature grandeur that placed it on the level of some of the greatest
pianists in memory." In addition to winning First Prize at the 1996
William Kapell International Piano Competition in Maryland, she was
awarded top prizes at the 1993 Stravinsky Awards International Piano
Competition in Illinois and both the 1998 and the 2000 Palm Beach Invitational
International Piano Competition in Florida.
Ms. Budiardjo's debut recording which was released in January 1999 by
Pro Piano Records has garnered high praises for her interpretations
of Mendelssohn's music. American Record Guide wrote, "Mendelssohn's
piano works were always wonderfully crafted, and when they are played
as well as this, they are endlessly enjoyable." In December 1999, Pro
Piano also released her second recording which features the music of
Godowsky and Tansman. Recently this disc was selected by the Philadelphia
Inquirer as one of the top 10 classical CDs in 2000. In the same year,
Fanfare magazine, who placed it in its Want List, noted, "Esther Budiardjo's
exquisitely modulated exuberance - if hardly lacking in elan - is plummily
sensuous in even the most furious passages, languidly sensual or liquidly
opulent where called for, gorgeously colored and often scintillant,
dramatically open, and, in sum, stunningly, splendidly, superbly persuasive."
Ms. Budiardjo's third recording, released in December ! 2002, features
works by Moszowski and Brahms.
In recent years Ms. Budiardjo has been performing throughout North America,
Europe, and Japan.
Born in Jakarta, Indonesia, Ms. Budiardjo now resides in Vancouver,
Canada. In December 2002 she received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree
from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. There she also
received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees with Distinction in Performance
as well as the Presidential Scholar Award. Her principal teachers have
been Wha Kyung Byun, Russell Sherman, and Lev Vlasenko. In 1999, Ms.
Budiardjo became a United States citizen.
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