 Jon
Nakamatsu
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Jon Nakamatsu
A native of California, Jon Nakamatsu claimed a distinguished place on the international musical scene in June, 1997 when named the Gold Medalist of the Tenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the only American to have achieved this distinction since 1981. A former high school German teacher, he became a popular hero overnight in the highly traditional medium of classical music.
Highlights of Jon Nakamatsu's current season include return engagements with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Annapolis, Baton Rouge and Pacific Symphony Orchestras as well as performances with the orchestras of Brevard, Marin, Peninsula, Rogue Valley and West Virginia and the Masterworks Chorale at San Mateo. In recital, he is heard in Bellevue (WA), Bozeman, Columbus (GA), Corrales (NM), Fort Worth, Fort Myers, Knoxville and San Jose as well as Milan, Italy, while chamber music activities include performances with the Ives Quartet. Summer, 2004 includes Mr. Nakamatsu’s returns to Connecticut’s famed "Summer Music at Harkness" festival, Colorado’s Strings in the Mountains, and Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival for another performance with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
During the summer of 1997, Jon Nakamatsu was invited to replace Vladimir Ashkenazy in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro as soloist with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and performed at Tanglewood with the Boston Pops, the Klavier Festival Ruhr in Germany and the Montpellier Festival in France. Since then, he has also appeared as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, The New World Symphony, as well as the orchestras of Cincinnati, Dallas, Dayton, Detroit, Fort Worth, Honolulu, Milwaukee, New Mexico, Rochester, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Toledo and Utah. Mr. Nakamatsu has collaborated with many of today's leading conductors, among them James Conlon, Leslie B. Dunner, Neal Gittleman, Marek Janowski, Raymond Leppard, Jahja Ling, Keith Lockhart, David Lockington, Alfred Savia, Carl St. Clair, Hans Vonk and Samuel Wong. His 1998-99 season was highlighted by a White House performance of Rhapsody in Blue, hosted by President and Mrs. Clinton.
Jon Nakamatsu's extensive recital tours throughout the United States and Europe have featured debuts in New York City (Carnegie Hall), Washington, DC (John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Paris, London and Milan. He has worked with various chamber ensembles - among them the Brentano, Tokyo and Ying String Quartets - and was the recipient of the Steven De Groote Memorial Award for his semifinal round chamber music performances at the Cliburn competition. In the fall of 2000, he toured coast-to-coast with the Berlin Philharmonic Woodwind Quintet.
In July of 1999, Jon Nakamatsu made his debut at France's Evian Music Festival and, one year later, he returned to the Tanglewood Music Festival, thefamed summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He has also appeared at Festival Casals de Puerto Rico, performing with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Carl St. Clair, and at the Tacoma International Music Festival and Lincoln's Meadowlark Music Festival.
Named Debut Artist of the Year (1998) by NPR's "Performance Today," Jon Nakamatsu has been profiled by "CBS Sunday Morning" and Reader's Digest magazine, and is featured in "Playing with Fire," a documentary about the Tenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, aired nationwide on PBS. Earlier, in 1995, he was named the First Prize winner of Miami's Fifth United States Chopin Piano Competition. Mr. Nakamatsu records exclusively for harmonia mundi usa, which has released four CDs, the most recent of which contains performances of Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, with Christopher Seaman and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
Jon Nakamatsu has studied privately with Marina Derryberry since the age of six, has worked with Karl Ulrich Schnabel and studied composition and orchestration with Dr. Leonard Stein of the Schoenberg Institute at the University of Southern California. In addition, he has pursued extensive studies in chamber music and musicology. Mr. Nakamatsu is a graduate of Stanford University with a bachelor's degree in German Studies and a master's degree in Education.