London-based pianist, Ben Schoeman is a Steinway Artist. He was awarded the first prize in the 11th UNISA International Piano Competition in Pretoria, the gold medal in the Royal Over-Seas League Music Competition in London, the contemporary music prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition, USA, the Standard Bank Young Artist Award, and the H Rupert Prize for achievements in Classical Music from the South African Academy for Science and Art.

He has given solo, chamber music and concerto performances in concert halls over the world, including the Carnegie Hall in New York, Wigmore, Barbican, Cadogan, LSO St Luke’s and Queen Elizabeth Halls in London, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Gulbenkian Auditorium in Lisbon, the Fondazione Cariplo Auditorium in Milan, the Cape Town City Hall, and the Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest. He has performed at many international festivals such as City of London, Edinburgh, Chester, Enescu Bucharest, Grahamstown and Ottawa. As a concerto soloist he has collaborated in over 40 works with numerous conductors, including Wolfram Christ, Nicholas Cleobury, Daniel Boico, Bernhard Gueller, Carlos Izcaray, Gérard Korsten, Theodore Kuchar, Diego Masson, Jonathan McPhee, En Shao, Yasuo Shinozaki and Conrad van Alphen.

He studied piano under Prof Joseph Stanford at the University of Pretoria and went on to postgraduate studies at the Accademia Pianistica ‘Incontri col Maestro’ in Imola, the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole near Florence and in London with Michel Dalberto, Boris Petrushansky, and Eliso Virsaladze. He obtained a doctorate in music from City, University of London with a thesis on the piano works of the eminent composer Stefans Grové whose African-inspired music Schoeman has premiered and performed in several countries.

His recording of music by Franz Liszt under the TwoPianists label received critical acclaim in the American Record Review, as well as his recordings of Cello and Piano Sonatas by Anton Rubinstein and Sergei Rachmaninoff with Anzél Gerber. His performance in London with pianist Tessa Uys of Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony, arranged for piano duet by Xaver Scharwenka, has been televised numerous times. The duo has recorded all nine Beethoven Symphonies and two-piano works by Schumann, Saint-Saëns and Busoni for SOMM Recordings. Their albums have received rave reviews in the BBC Music, International Piano and Gramophone Magazines as well as the Sunday Times, Classical Explorer and on BBC Radio 3 and Radio France.

www.benschoeman.com

Reviews in international publications:

“events tower in scale and sonority, leading to a focused, resplendently noble and toughly argued reading.” (Ates Orga, International Piano Magazine)

“Played affectionately as here, with a velvet touch as though the music were emerging through a shimmering heat haze, the effect is utterly beguiling.” (Julian Haylock, BBC Magazine)

“The mastery of Schoeman and Uys’s part-playing (some of which emerges with greater clarity than on many orchestral recordings) and complete conviction matched the depth of texture that Scharwenka’s four hands conjure up.” (Jeremy Nicholas, Gramophone)

“The most exquisite Bach-playing” (Glasgow Herald)