Album Notes

The San Francisco Chronicle has described her as “A four-star musician with blazing technique, uncanny agility, musical intelligence, and sensitivity.”

“Lois Brandwynne demonstrated her qualities as a pianist of the romantic style: a very eloquent Chopin and a Schumann animated by a profound inspiration that was boundlessly seductive.” —La Lettre du Musicien, Paris

Soloist, chamber musician, master teacher and recording artist, Lois Brandwynne represents the fourth generation in a family of professional musicians. Her father, Nat Brandwynne, was a pianist and orchestra leader accompanying such pop legends as Frank Sinatra and Lena Horne. Her greatuncle, Naftulah Brandwein, “the pied-piper of Brooklyn,” is an icon among Eastern European gypsy musicians, remembered for his passionate and wildly imaginative clarinet style.

She left New York for California’s Mills College on a full music scholarship. There she studied piano with the great Dutch pianist Egon Petri, the revered Russian coach Alexander Libermann, and composition with composers Darius Milhaud and Leon Kirchner. She then coached with pianists Leonard Shure in New York and Alfred Brendel in Vienna thanks to two successive traveling music fellowships from the University of California at Berkeley.

It was a life-long inspiration that her first performance with orchestra was conducted by the great French composer Darius Milhaud from his wheelchair. Since then, she has soloed with the San Francisco and Oakland symphonies, the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and others. She has given recitals in the United States and Europe to critical acclaim and given chamber music recitals with major performers.

The critiques of her playing are universally in agreement: “…genuine passion and emotional urgency” wedded to “technical mastery and understanding.” (San Francisco Classical Voice) It is clear that Lois Brandwynne has resoundingly continued the musical tradition of her family.