User:Christopher Hepburn

Pianist CHRISTOPHER HEPBURN turned to studying music full-time after graduating from secondary school. His performances have been described as "full of passion and expressivity" by Jennifer Elowsky-Fox, Professor of Piano at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, M.A, "highly enjoyable" by Kurt Johnson host of ‘At the Crossroads’ the Texas based KTRL 90.5 FM radio program, and “so beautiful and incredibly moving” by writer Lisa Mikulski who serves as Director of Communications and Public Relations for AIGA Connecticut.

His summers have led him to perform and study in many locations across the continental United States and abroad. In the summer of 2007, as part of his first ever study abroad program, Hepburn flew to Tuscania, Italy where he studied accompanying with Mº Nicoletta Conti (a student of iconic composer Leonard Bernstein and accompanist to famed tenor Luciano Pavarotti) and was a featured soloist in the first annual Lorenzo de'Medici International Piano and Voice Competition. In the summer of 2010, Hepburn traveled to Boston, Massachusetts where he studied the Robert Schumann Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54 at the Berklee College of Music, under the direction of Professor of Piano, Jennifer Elowsky-Fox. During his time in Boston, he performed various works of Clara Schumann at the Harvard Epworth Hall during what was the Robert Schumann bicentennial celebration. Later, in the summer of 2011, Hepburn boarded a plane to Great Britain where he took part in a performing arts research course on the larger works of English playwrights at the Queen Mary, University of London. While in London, Hepburn was coached by Christopher Elton, who is the previous Head of Keyboard Studies for the Royal Academy of Music and student of Artur Schnabel’s last and favorite pupil, Maria Curcio (who is noted for teaching pianists such as Leon Fleisher, Dame Mitsuko Uchida, and Martha Argerich).

Hepburn is graduated of Tarleton State University's piano program which is headed under the direction of Associate Professor of Piano, Dr. Leslie Spotz—with whom he exclusively studies piano performance. Spotz, as a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, brings to Tarleton State University a rich tradition of musicianship bequeathed unto her by the great legends, her teachers, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, Rudolf Serkin, Gaby Casadesus, and Irwin Freundlich. In addition to his studies with Leslie Spotz, Hepburn has, on several occasions, played for Marika Kyriakos (a student of Ozan Marsh — who was noted as a pupil of Rachmaninoff, Horowitz, and Sauer).

He is a direct lineage member of the Leschetizky Association based in New York, NY.