Artist description Blair McMillen has performed for Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev, with the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, and with the Juilliard String Quartet at the dedication concert of Morse Recital Hall at Lincoln Center. He won the Gina Bachauer Competition and the Sony ES Career Grant within one year while still a student at Juilliard. In 1993, he was the first person in history to be unanimously awarded Grand Prize in the National Young Artists Competition.

Music Style Classical Piano

Musical Influences JS Bach, Frederic Chopin, Claude Debussy, Iannis Xenakis, Vladimir Horowitz, Keith Jarrett, John Coltrane, Frank Zappa.

Artist History Blair McMillen is establishing himself as one of the most versatile and sought-after young pianists today. He has received critical acclaim for his performances throughout the United States and abroad. His many concerto and recital appearances include several performances at Alice Tully Hall and a tour of Japan as soloist with the Juilliard Orchestra. A dedicated chamber musician, Blair McMillen has performed with the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, with the American String Quartet and New York Woodwind Quintet, with tenor Anthony Dean Griffey, and he played alongside the Juilliard String Quartet at the dedication concert of the Morse Recital Hall at Lincoln Center. Other recent performance venues have included Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and the 92nd Street Y. A graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy, Blair McMillen received his bachelors' degrees in both history and piano from Oberlin College, where he studied with Robert McDonald. At Oberlin he won the school's Outstanding Chamber Musician Award, as well as the Concerto Competition and the Arthur Dann Memorial Piano Competition. Blair went on to study with Jerome Lowenthal at the Juilliard School, where he received a masters' degree. While at Juilliard he was the winner of the prestigious Juilliard Gina Bachauer Competition and also received the Sony ES Career Grant for Musical Excellence, a career-advancement award given to outstanding Juilliard musicians. A major advocate of contemporary music, Blair McMillen has premiered and recorded numerous instrumental and chamber pieces, and has worked closely with composers George Crumb, John Harbison, Bernard Rands, Thomas Ades, and Milton Babbitt. He is a member of Full Fathom, a new-music ensemble, and a founding member of Non sequitur, a creative-arts/outreach ensemble based in New York. Blair has also toured and performed with the Locrian Chamber Players, the Eos Ensemble, and the New Juilliard Ensemble, to name a few. In 1993 Blair McMillen became the only unanimously-chosen winner in the thirty-five year history of the National Young Artists Competition. He was also a winner of the 1998 Time-Warner award at the Aspen Music Festival, where he held a contemporary music fellowship for three summers. A self-taught jazz pianist and arranger, Blair is currently pursuing a D.M.A. at the Manhattan School of Music under Byron Janis.

Location New York, NY - USA

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