Concert Piano Series - Antonio Pompa-Baldi
Founded and directed by Faina Lushtak the Concert Piano Series seeks to present great music literature through performances by artists of the highest caliber.
The Concert Piano Series offers performances to the public completely free of charge. We are proud to bring internationally recognized performers such as Sergei Babayan Vladamir Viardo Ian Hobson Alexander Korsantia Angela Cheng and Seho Young to the Dixon Hall stage for the education and enrichment of Tulane students and the New Orleans community at large.
***The Artist***
Born and raised in Foggia Italy Antonio Pompa-Baldi won the Cleveland International Piano Competition in 1999 and embarked on a career that continues to extend across five continents. A top prize winner at the 1998 Marguerite Long- Jacques Thibaud Competition of Paris Pompa-Baldi also won a silver medal at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Pompa-Baldi appears at the world’s major concert venues including New York’s Carnegie Hall Cleveland’s Severance Hall Milan’s Sala Verdi Boston’s Symphony Hall Shanghai’s Grand Theatre and Paris’ Salle Pleyel to name a few.
He has collaborated with leading conductors including Hans Graf James Conlon Miguel Harth-Bedoya Theodore Kuchar Benjamin Zander Louis Lane and Keith Lockhart. He has performed with ensembles and colleagues such as the Takács String Quartet trumpeter Alison Balsom cellist Sharon Robinson Juilliard Quartet violinist Areta Zhulla and principals of The Cleveland Orchestra Dallas Symphony and New York Philharmonic among others.
With a concerto repertoire including more than 60 works Pompa-Baldi has performed cycles of all the Rachmaninoff piano concertos the five Beethoven piano concertos and both Brahms piano concertos among many other mainstream works.
He also loves performing new scores and lesser known ones from premiering piano concertos by Italian composers Roberto Piana and Luca Moscardi to resurrecting the early A minor Respighi Piano Concerto the Howard Ferguson Concerto and the Cecile Chaminade Konzertstück to name a few.
Pompa-Baldi has played recitals in most major venues over the world attaining the same balance between featuring beloved works from the standard repertoire and showcasing new or unjustly neglected masterpieces. Among recent stops on his tours he performed in Vienna Austria; Malaga Spain; Nancy France; New York; Cape Town South Africa; Husum Festival Germany; Duszniki Chopin Festival Poland. He also toured China playing and teaching in Beijing Nanjing as well as the Lang Lang festivals in Shenzhen and Hangzhou. In addition he in 2023 he appeared as soloist with the Thailand Philharmonic in Bangkok.
Mr. Pompa-Baldi has recorded over 30 CDs to date for various labels including Centaur Records Steinway Brilliant Classics Harmonia Mundi TwoPianists and Azica. Among them the complete piano and chamber music works of Grieg the Josef Rheinberger Piano Sonatas the complete Hummel Piano Sonatas and CDs dedicated to Brahms Schumann Liszt Respighi and Rachmaninoff.
For the Steinway label Pompa-Baldi recorded a disc of songs by Francis Poulenc and Edith Piaf arranged for solo piano to commemorate the 50th year of the passing of both French musical icons as well as a CD titled “Napoli” which features new piano versions of famous Neapolitan songs.
His latest releases feature Concertos for Violin Piano and Orchestra by Mendelssohn Haydn and Hummel as well as a CD of newly composed Opera Fantasies on La Bohème and Carmen by Roberto Piana. The Steinway label also recently released Pompa-Baldi’s piano transcription of the Respighi B minor Violin Sonata The score has been published by the Japanese publishing house Muse Press.
Antonio Pompa-Baldi is a Steinway Artist since 2003.
He is often invited to judge international piano competitions such as the Cleveland Hilton Head E-Competition (Minneapolis) BNDES Rio de Janeiro and Edward Grieg (Bergen) among many others. He serves as president of the jury and artistic advisor for the San Jose International Piano Competition since 2006.
Pompa-Baldi is on faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music as Artist-in-Residence and Distinguished Professor of Piano and currently serving as Head of the Piano Department.
His students have been prizewinners in important competitions such as Marguerite Long Hilton Head Isang Yun and Gina Bachauer. He is regularly invited to teach masterclasses in countless universities music schools and festivals in the US and all over the world. He holds honorary professorships from the Beijing Shanghai and Shenyang Conservatories as well as several other institutions.
From 2009 to 2012 Pompa-Baldi lead the Manuel Rueda program in Santo Domingo working with with Fundación por la Musica mentoring young Dominican pianists.
In 2015 Pompa-Baldi founded the Todi International Music Masters festival of which he is artistic director and faculty member. This summer festival takes place every August in the beautiful Italian town of Todi. It features 15 concerts in 15 days masterclasses with internationally renown faculty members and students from all over the world.
