Aglaia Koras, Concert Pianist

Critics have hailed her performances as "masterful." Concert pianist Aglaia Koras made her debut at age eleven with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Recognition by her mentor, Greek pianist Gina Bachauer, drew the attention of Rudolf Serkin, then Director of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where Ms. Koras studied for several years on full scholarship with Serkin and Mieczyslaw Horszowski. After receiving the Curtis Alumni Award for three consecutive years, she graduated from Curtis with a Bachelor's degree in Piano. Rudolf Serkin called her "an excellent pianist, a fine musician," and Horszowski called her "a great artist" at her graduation.

In 1983, the City of New York and the Queens Council on the Arts sponsored her New York Debut at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, to a standing ovation. Audience members included Karl Ulrich Schnabel, artist Isamu Noguchi, Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, New York University President John Brademas, and other celebrated personalities. She has returned several times to Lincoln Center, and also performed at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, at the Kennedy Center, at Merkin Concert Hall, and in major concert halls throughout the United States as well as concerts in France, England, Switzerland, Greece, Spain, Canada, and Mexico, including both European and American television and radio broadcasts.

This season, Ms. Koras is re-engaged for the sixth consecutive season to perform at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, sponsored by Mid-America Productions. On March 1, 2010, Ms. Koras performed an all-Chopin 200th Birthday Tribute recital at Carnegie Hall, to a rousing standing ovation. The concert sold out, with people still waiting in line at the box office. This season, Ms. Koras has been invited to perform Beethoven on a special Beethoven tour with orchestra, which includes a concert in 2010 at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. >/p>

In recent seasons, she was invited to perform an all-Chopin recital in Mexico City. She performed at the Wolf Trap Ball. Ms. Koras was also lauded last season as a selective recipient of an individual performing artist grant award from the Maryland State Arts Council. Ms. Koras has been a frequent performer at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, including an all-Mozart 250th Birthday Concert; she also performed in a special program for the United States Ambassadors in Washington, DC; in recitals at the Kennedy Center; in concerts sponsored by the National Symphony Orchestra; the Recording Industry's Music Performance Trust Fund as arranged by the American Federation of Musicians; in programs in Spain, Greece, and Brazil; on the Smithsonian website; and in concerts sponsored by the Curtis Alumni and Leschetizky Associations.

Ms. Koras has received top prizes in several international and national piano competitions, including: the International Chopin Young Pianists Competition, first prize; the International American Music Scholarship Association Piano Competition, first prize; the International Concert Artists Guild Competition, "Fine Artistry and Musical Excellence Award"; the National Young Musicians Foundation Competition, first prize; the Koszciusko Foundation Competition; the La Gesse Foundation Fellowship of France; the Adopt-An-Artist Award of New York City; the Ruth Slenszynska Award for Piano, as well as other awards.

Ms. Koras' musical lineage can be traced to Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and Cortot. Horszowski studied with Leschetizky, who studied with Carl Czerny, a pupil of Beethoven. Horszowski's mother studied with Mikuli, a pupil of Chopin. Bachauer studied with Rachmaninoff and Cortot. This rich heritage, combined with her own unique passion, intelligence, imagination, and tremendous capacity for expression brings an extraordinarily wide range of stylistic insight to her unusually broad repertoire.

In addition to being an active performing artist, Ms. Koras has served on the faculties of Temple University (where she simultaneously received a master's degree on full scholarship) and the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

In addition to her concert work, Ms. Koras teaches piano to students of all ages and levels at her studio in West Bethesda, MD, in the Washington, DC metro area.