Award winning sixteen-year-old American pianist, Drew Petersen,
has performed solo, concerto, and chamber music recitals in both Europe
and the United States. He was presented in performances at Carnegie’s
Weill Recital Hall at the ages of five and six. Among his other performances
are recitals at the Musica e Arte Festival in Tolentino, Italy, Verbier
Festival in Verbier, Switzerland, Euro Music Festival in Leipzig, Germany,
as well as performances in New York City at Steinway Hall, the Rose Theater
at Lincoln Center, Donnell Library and Greenwich House of Music. In 2003,
Drew was presented by Steinway & Sons for their 150th Anniversary
in a solo recital.
In 2006, Drew was heard on NPR’s radio program “From the Top”
featuring the nation’s most gifted young classical musicians. In
2008 Drew won both the Manhattan School of Music Concerto Competition
and the Yonkers Philharmonic Concerto Competition. In 2009 he won First
Prize in the Friday Woodmere Young Artists Competition and he was featured
multiple times on the McGraw-Hill “Young Artists Showcase,”
hosted by Robert Sherman and aired on New York’s WQXR. He also received
a scholarship from the Chopin Foundation of the United States for rendering
stylistic interpretations of a variety of Chopin’s solo piano works.
Drew also enjoys chamber music and won the Lincoln Center Chamber Music
Society’s competition in May 2005 as a member of a piano trio and
in summer 2008 was heard live on French radio, France Musique, as a member
of a chamber group.
As a cultural leader in music, Drew has collaborated with Young Audiences
NY presenting performances in NY City Public Schools and was the soloist
with the Westchester Philharmonic under the baton of Maestro Paul Dunkel,
for the “Mozart and Me” educational program for 4000 school
children in Westchester County, NY. Drew has also been a featured performer
on the PBS program, “From the Top Live from Carnegie Hall.”
In July 2004, at the age of ten, Drew was presented in his own recital
as part of the Music Festival of the Hamptons in Bridgehampton, NY and
was then invited back in July 2005 to perform a Mozart Piano Concerto
with Maestro Lukas Foss conducting for the opening night gala. Drew became
the focus of a documentary titled “Just Normal” leading up
to this performance which was produced and aired on Plum TV.
Drew has participated in several summer music festivals including the
Music Festival of the Hamptons, Meadowmount, Tanglewood, and, most recently,
the Euro Music Festival Academy in Leipzig, Germany. In summer 2008, Drew
was a participant in the Verbier Festival Academy where he studied with
Claude Frank, Menahem Pressler and Gabor Takacs-Nagy. At 14 years of age,
Drew was the recipient of the Verbier Festival Academy Tabor Piano Award
2008.
Drew Petersen began piano lessons at the age of five and currently attends
the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division in New York City where
he studies piano with Miyoko Lotto, conducting with Maestro David Gilbert
and chamber music with André Michel Schub. Drew has been selected
and has participated in master classes with Emmanuel Ax, Claude Frank,
Menahem Pressler and André Michel Schub.
Drew enjoys performing at senior care facilities, in his community, for
fund raising events, at schools for educational outreach and doing lectures
for children at local libraries. He has been a competitive swimmer on
a NJ swim team since the age of 5 and is an outstanding academic student
who is currently studying several languages and is a degree candidate
at Harvard University Extension School. In 2006, Drew was named a Davidson
Fellow by the Davidson Institute for Talent Development