Composers
Karen Walwyn
1962 -About
Karen Walwyn (b. 1962) Steinway Artist Karen Walwyn, Concert Pianist, Composer and an Albany Recording Artist, is the first female African American pianist and composer to receive the Steinway Artist Award.
As a pianist, Ms. Walwyn premiered the Florence Price Concerto in One Movement with the New Black Music Repertory Ensemble and has since received command performances of the concerto as well as her newly discovered music for solo concerts. She was the featured pianist in the James Greeson Grammy Nominated Documentary entitled The Caged Bird: The life and music of Florence B. Price.
As a composer, she recently received the Global Award: “Gold Medal - Award of Excellence” for her recording of her composition entitled Reflections on 9/11. Robert Schulslaper of Fanfare Magazine wrote: “Imaginatively conceived and executed, it both disturbingly transposes the catastrophe into appropriately cataclysmic sound and artistically suggests the aftermath’s lingering sense of numbing devastation.” The demand for concerts of this seven-movement ‘tour de force’ continuously carries her across the nation for command performances, which was first premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
A native of New York, Ms. Walwyn made her New York debut at Merkin Hall as a follow-up to her 2-CD series for Albany Records entitled Dark Fires, offering premiere recordings of works by American composers of African descent. Consequently, Walwyn, invited by the Center of Black Music Research in Chicago, performed and recorded the premiere recording of the Florence Price Concerto for Piano in One Movement. Noted music critic, Bob McQuiston, exclaimed: “Walwyn provides a magnificent account of the concerto displaying her considerable technical skills”.
A Mellon Faculty Fellow at the John Hope Franklin Institute, Duke University, Walwyn composed her debut choral work entitled Of Dance & Struggle: A Musical Tribute on the Life of Nelson Mandela, (Choir/Solo Piano/African Percussion) commissioned and performed by the Elon University Chorale under the direction of Dr. Gerald Knight. It has been heralded by the South African Embassy in Washington, D.C. as a monumental work for our beloved president, Nelson Mandela.
Dr. Walwyn, Area Coordinator of Keyboard Studies at Howard University, is in constant concert demand nationally and internationally for both her repertoire from FrОdОric Chopin to Florence Price, as well as for performances of her own works for solo piano, choir and instrumental ensemble. Some recent concerts include appearances on NPR, and PBS, and in international concert halls in Johannesburg, South Africa; Barcelona, Spain; Tenerife, Canary Islands; Salzburg, Austria; London, England; and Nice, France. Nationally, Walwyn has performed throughout the contiguous United States plus Hawaii, West Indies and the Virgin Islands.
Related Information
https://www.karenwalwyn.com/