Dr. John Salmon
TEACHING ARTIST
JOHN SALMON is the only person to have served as a judge for the Festival every year since its founding in 2001. He has distinguished himself on four continents, as both a classical and jazz artist.
In the United States, he has given recitals for the Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago, the Discovery Series in Indianapolis, the Van Cliburn Foundation in Fort Worth, and a Busoni Gala at Symphony Space in New York. He has also appeared as recitalist at many colleges and universities across the United States, including Tulane, Vanderbilt, Cincinnati College Conservatory, and San Francisco State University.
His performances have been heard on many radio stations in the U.S., including NPR, WNYC in New York, WFMT in Chicago, and KUSC in Los Angeles; and on the national radio stations of Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Moldova, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Ukraine.
John is also a frequent guest performer at festivals in the U.S. and Europe, having appeared at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival (Charleston, South Carolina), Piano Festival Northwest (Portland, Oregon), Interlochen Piano Festival (Interlochen, Michigan), Festival Internacional de Música del Mediterráneo (Cartagena, Spain), and the International Bartók Festival (Szombathely, Hungary). He has toured China six times, with concerts in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang, and Hangzhou. He has also been the featured artist for the Music Teachers National Association state conferences in California (CAPMT), Virginia (VMTA), and Minnesota (MMTA).
John has recorded four compact discs of Dave Brubeck’s classical piano music, on the Phoenix, Naxos, and Albany labels. Brubeck dedicated two compositions to Salmon – “The Salmon Strikes (song sample)” and “Bach Again (song sample).”John’s CD of piano pieces by Nikolai Kapustin is also on the Naxos label, and his CD of his own jazz compositions, Salmon Is A Jumpin’, was released by Albany Records in November 2010.
As guest lecturer, John has spoken on a wide array of topics – e.g., “Beethoven’s Shadow” (The Juilliard School), “September 1828: Schubert’s Last Three Piano Sonatas” (Boston Conservatory), and “Adding Notes to Classical Scores” (Conservatorio de Música, Morelia, Mexico).
John has been a member of the faculty of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro School of Music since 1989. He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The University of Texas at Austin; the Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School; the Solistendiplom from the Hochschule für Musik, Freiburg, Germany; and the Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Arts (philosophy) degrees from Texas Christian University. His awards include the Premio Jaén (1979), the Gina Bachauer Award from Juilliard, a fellowship from the Beethoven Foundation (known nowadays as the American Pianists Association), and prizes from the 1979 University of Maryland (William Kapell Competition) and 1984 Busoni competitions.
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A sampling of Dr. Salmon’s expressive gestures at the 2017 Festival for Creative Pianists adjudications:
John Salmon with Connor Watz, Maria Evans and Maria Ali