Summer at St. Mary's
Professor Jeffrey Silberschlag conducting the Chesapeake Orchestra at the River Concert Series.
Study abroad in Italy
You can participate in the Alba Music Festival, or study for a semester at our campus in the north of Italy.
Eliza Garth
Piano Instructor
Click HERE for Eliza Garth's personal website
“Ms. Garth … has an exquisite ear for piano sound. One can think of no one better qualified to play this intricate, shining music.” - The New York Times
“Garth is a pianist who boasts an exceptional warmth, beauty of sound, and vocality of phrasing” - The Boston Globe
Pianist ELIZA GARTH has achieved international distinction as a performer of contemporary music and the standard repertoire, through her recordings and her appearances in major cities in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Widely regarded as an artist with a passionate voice and an adventurous spirit, she has championed some of the most demanding works in the repertoire.
One of her current adventures is “The Enchanted Piano,” a recital series she created, developed, and performs. “The Enchanted Piano” is devoted to music for piano strings, piano with electronics, prepared piano, and amplified piano, and has delighted audiences in the U.S. and Europe. It includes works by Cage, Cowell, Crumb, Davidovsky, Lin, and Wright. Currently Ms. Garth is collaborating with choreographer James Martin to bring the added dimension of dance to “The Enchanted Piano.” World premiere performances of this new, choreographed version are planned for the fall of 2011 in New York City.
Ms. Garth’s recordings of the complete solo piano works of the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Donald Martino (Centaur Records) have attracted national critical acclaim. The first of these, her debut solo CD, was the first-ever recording devoted entirely to Martino’s solo piano music, and was included in a New York Times survey of its own music critics’ favorite recordings of music written since 1945.
Eliza Garth is noted as a creative recitalist. In the 2009-2010 season, for example, she invited pianist Brian Ganz and percussionists Jonathan Haas and Sean Statser to partner with her in an evening of music that included Bartok’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion and George Crumb’s Music for a Summer Evening. Their performance of the program in Merkin Concert Hall in Manhattan, with sponsorship from the League of Composers/ISCM, drew praise from the New York Times, which described the event as “mesmerizing.”
After completing her studies at The Juilliard School, Ms. Garth made her New York recital debut with an all-Alban Berg concert of solo and chamber works that included the Chamber Concerto For Piano, Violin, and Thirteen Wind Instruments, conducted by Harvey Sollberger.
In the seasons since then, Ms. Garth has performed over 150 new works, more than 50 of them premieres, including numerous works written for her. Most recent among these is Gradualia, a new piano concerto by the American composer Scott Wheeler. In collaboration with conductor Jeffrey Silberschlag, she performed the world premiere of Gradualia at the 2006 Alba Music Festival, and the American premiere at the 2006 River Concert Series at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.
In the spring of 2007 Ms. Garth returned to the Alba Festival to perform John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes.
A founding member of the Chamber Players of the League - I.S.C.M. in New York City, Ms. Garth also is in frequent demand as a guest artist. She has made guest appearances for the Chamber Music Society of Baltimore, the Rotterdam (Holland) Arts Council, Collage (at Symphony Hall in Boston), the Twentieth Century Consort (at the Smithsonian Institution), Parnassus, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Washington Square Contemporary Music Society, the New Music Consort, the Fromm Foundation concert series (Boston), and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, among many others.
Ms. Garth’s recording (with violinist Rolf Schulte and cellist Eric Bartlett) of The Open Secret, a piano trio by Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Moravec, can be heard on the CRI label. Her recording of David Froom’s Piano Suite, written for her with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, was released on the Arabesque label. Her recordings for Opus One include Six Little Pieces for four hands by Arnold Schoenberg, and the complete duo piano music of Frank Martin (both with pianist Yolanda Liepa). Ms. Garth’s performances have been heard on the BBC Radio 3, WQXR and WNYC in New York, WBUR and WHRV in Boston, Radio de la Suisse Romande in Geneva, WGUC in Cincinnati, WUSF radio and television in Tampa, and Vatican Radio in Rome.
Eliza Garth is a member of the faculty of St. Mary's College of Maryland, where she is the director of “Piano Fest,” an annual summer festival of workshops, recitals, and masterclasses for pianists, which she conducts with her colleagues Brian Ganz and Beverly Babcock, that is part of the River Concert Series. In the fall of 2005, she traveled to China with several of her faculty colleagues to appear in the centennial celebration at Fudan University in Shanghai, and to give performances in Beijing and Dalian.
Ms. Garth has been recognized by the Maryland State Arts Council with two Individual Artist Awards, most recently in 2010.
