CofC Piano Virtuoso Wins Coveted Vendome Prize
College of Charleston Artist Certificate music student Sean Kennard won the title of Vendome Virtuoso in the Vendome International Piano Competition in Lisbon, Portugal, July 2009. An international jury chaired by famed conductor Jeffrey Tate awarded Kennard a $10,000 prize and a recital at the Salle Cortot in Paris, France on December 8, 2009.
Kennard, a student of Enrique Graf at the College of Charleston’s School of the Arts, will appear as soloist in the Third Piano Concerto by Ludwig van Beethoven with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra and David Stahl, at the Gailliard Auditorium, on October 17, 2009.
The purpose of the Vendome Prize is to seek out, reward, support, and guide future professional artists who are technically perfect, magnetic, original, and ambitious, in possession of a large repertoire and willing to endure the rigors of performance on tour. Fourteen pianists were chosen to compete live from over 2,000 who auditioned in New York City and nominated by major music conservatories and universities over the past three years.
Previously, Kennard was the first prizewinner of the 2007 Dr. Luis Sigall International Music Competition in Viña del Mar, Chile and has also won top prizes in the Hilton Head International Piano Competition, National Chopin Competition, Sendai International Music Competition, and Iowa Piano Competition.
Kennard was born in 1984 and began playing at age ten. In 1995 he made his recital debut, and since then he has appeared as soloist with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Yamagata Symphony Orchestra, Sendai Philharmonic, Deutches Kammerorchester Frankfurt am Main, Orquesta Sinfonica de Chile, Orquesta Filarmónica de Montevideo, Orquesta Filarmónica Regional, Orquesta Sinfonica de Universidad de Concepción, Sinfonia Perugina, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Honolulu Symphony Orchestra, Hilton Head Orchestra, Sioux City Symphony Orchestra, and Florida International University Orchestra. Kennard has also performed at the Chopin Society in Warsaw and in Carnegie Hall as part of the Hawaii Music Awards. Recently he gave his debut performance in Japan's Tokyo Opera City Recital Hall.
Kennard began playing the piano in Hawaii with his first teacher Ellen Masaki and while he was her student gave a recital at the Academy of Arts in Honolulu performing the 24 Chopin Etudes. Three years after his first piano lesson he was accepted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He studied with Eleanor Sokoloff at the Curtis Institute of Music and graduated in 2004. In his final year there, he won the piano department's Sergei Rachmaninoff Award, given to one graduating pianist each year. Currently Sean is working with Enrique Graf, first prizewinner of the William Kapell International Piano Competition and Artist-in-Residence at the College of Charleston’s Department of Music.
More information about Kennard is available at http://www.seankennard.com/.