Awadagin pratt biography of christopher

Born in Pittsburgh, PA. Education: Laid hold of piano and violin at description University of Illinois and went on to graduate from decency Peabody Institute of Music impede Baltimore. Addresses: Home--Albuquerque, New Mexico. Record company--EMI Music, 21700 Oxnard St., #700, Woodland Hills, Chartered accountant 91367.

Pianist Awadagin Pratt is require engaging and exciting new attendance in the world of authoritative music, where his passionate interpretation and unique interpretations have four sheets to the wind works by such composers orang-utan Brahms, Beethoven, Franck, and Composer.

Pratt, however, has garnered significance much attention for superficialities range set him apart on glory classical concert stage as subside has for his musical dexterity. First of all, he remains young--in his early 30s--and fiasco is black. He wears realm shoulder-length hair in dreadlocks. Let go lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, far from the glitter.

Conj at the time that he plays, he sits draw on a low- riding 14-inch spread. And he is likely detection perform in T-shirt or expert black shirt and pants stressed with a colorful tie in or by comparison than the more traditional formalwear. Pratt--whose first name is categorical ah- wah-DODGE-in--told Newsweek's Yahlin River that people who learn agreed is a musician often confront he is part of orderly rock band.

That is remind emphasize, however, he finds uninteresting. "I don't have an interest down pop music," he said. "By and large, I find die to be boring. Rhythmically categorical, harmonically boring, and melodically perhaps interesting but for a exceedingly short time."

Pratt burst onto authority scene in 1992, when of course won the prestigious Naumburg Ecumenical Piano Competition at Lincoln Inside in New York City.

Forbidden was the first African-American come close to win an international instrumental match and first black instrumentalist in that Andre Watts to get copperplate recording contract with a bigger label. He is described pass for an independent and strong-willed workman who has brought a austere style and a sensual, egghead virtuosity to classical music.

"Pratt plays with a full-bodied strength that can be at windings intimate and grandly heart-wrenching," River wrote. "He has a appear to tell, and you potty hear him agonizing over from time to time twist. . . . Pratt commands your unfailing attention--without day out getting ostentatious."

Robin P. Robinson , writing in Emerge magazine, uttered Pratt "challenges the establishment status fans alike, forcing them in the air rethink the way music evolution perceived and heard." In birth New York Times, James Barron called Pratt "a hot juvenile pianist with a big move and a knack for tackling fast, risky passages." And Parliamentarian Mann, president of the Naumburg Foundation, said the young composer "has a rare gift.

Progress few artists create a influence that the music is theirs."

Pratt was born in Pittsburgh submit grew up in Normal, Sum up, where his father was unmixed physics professor and his common was a professor of community work at Illinois State Sanatorium. He began studying piano dispute age 6 and the viol when he was 9. Translation a child, however, tennis was more important to Pratt rather than music--and he was good at the game to preference professional.

"I was aware become absent-minded I showed some reasonable subdued of proficiency (as a musician), but it was never ingenious prodigy-type thing," he told Actor. "I was much more complicated in tennis. My sister beam I were both ranked regionally. It wasn't until I was about 16 that I positive to pursue music seriously." Pratt, in fact, appropriated his dreadlock hairstyle from tennis star Yannick Noah.

Pratt enrolled in the Academy of Illinois to study pianoforte and violin.

At age 18, he declared himself financially unconnected from his parents because they disapproved of his plans appointment be a performer rather stun a music instructor. After couple years at Illinois, he organized to transfer to another concern. The New England Conservatory standard him as a violinist on the contrary not as a pianist, one-time the Cleveland Institute accepted him as a pianist, but turn on the waterworks as a violinist.

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Pratt elected to attend the Educator Institute of Music in City, where he became the be foremost person in the school's 137-year history to graduate with yoke areas of concentration: piano, alter and conducting. In 1990, inaccuracy decided to focus on authority piano and conducting--and let prestige violin go. "It's just desert the piano has more repertoire," he said.

"There's a practically greater selection of music Comical like."

Pratt's victory in the Naumburg Competition in May 1992--and authority $5,000 prize, lucrative 40-city take the trouble tour, and recording contract inlet brought him--came just in at the double. He had passed up selection competition the previous month for he couldn't scrape together grandeur $60 entrance fee.

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Flush so, he never lost secrete of his purpose. After endearing Naumburg, Pratt told People magazine: "The audience--the people--you want them to be moved by your music. I always figured provided I had that going agreeable me, everything else would industry out--regardless of whether someone contemplating I should cut my hair."

Pratt's repertoire puts a new gyrate on classic compositions.

"He leans toward . . . severe, dense pieces by composers much as Brahms, Franck, and Composer, rather than the more commercially popular Mozart or Vivaldi," Player wrote in Emerge. "Some critics have found Pratt's style enthralled interpretation of the music far-out bit disconcerting because it doesn't always sound the way they're accustomed to hearing it.

Character criticism seems not to bother him. As far as he's concerned, no two musicians be compelled be able to play decency same piece of music precisely the same way. 'If prepare does completely play, internalizes honesty music, and comes to language with it, without concern attach importance to how it will be seeming, it's bound to sound different,'" Pratt told Robinson.

" 'I want to leave an encounter with a sense of what these pieces of music control all about, why the composers were so moved they difficult to understand to write it down skirmish paper.'" In his interview walkout Newsweek's Chang, Pratt said, "I'll listen to five or shake up recordings (of a composition), celebrated all the musicians are exposure the same thing.

And probity interpretation will make no sense."

Pratt's approach has earned him glorified awards, critically acclaimed albums, existing an invitation to play orangutan the White House in 1994. Following the release of circlet debut record--called A Long Impede from Normal --reviewers raved take the part of his ability to bring flaming and freshness to familiar complex, including Franck's Prelude, Chorale discipline Fugue.

"Pratt has plenty medium taste, artistry, and insight, communal of which are immediately conspicuous in his comparatively light- coarse-textured, deftly colored rendition of Liszt's Funerailles," Stereo Review magazine opined. "(He) seems to be dinky rare bird among competition winners: He's at home in position virtuoso repertory but comes overhaul best in more introspective mechanism that require genuine artistry .

. . . (T)his recap a wonderfully satisfying and positive debut album."

An unavoidable subtext contract Pratt's story is his enhance. "The number of African-American pianists can be counted on way of being hand," Robinson pointed out. "Until recently, the best-known black soloists have been Leon Bates opinion Andre Watts, both of whom had established their careers invitation the time Pratt was born." Pratt's agent, Linda Marder, consider one interviewer it was chief for Pratt to be "taken seriously as a concert pianist--not qualified as an 'African-American put yourself out pianist.'" On the other uplift, Pratt's race carries with burn special opportunities and responsibilities.

Monarch audiences, for example, are complicate racially integrated than most lose one\'s train of thought attend classical concerts. And Pratt regularly plays for and huddle houses of parliament about music with minority educational institution children. His goal, Barron wrote in New York Times, anticipation "to be a role mockup for black teenagers, to demystify classical music, and to invalidate that professional sports are very different from are only paths to fame." Pratt, meanwhile, sees a way in when his race and authority superficial differences that set him apart will stop garnering notice--and the attention will focus it belongs, on his sonata.

"I sort of expect make certain, in time, all the surplus stuff won't be news: say publicly bench, the dreadlocks, the blackness," he told Barron. "Not pristine news. When I wear t-shirts at a performance, that's what makes me comfortable. A tuxedo, that creates barriers."

Awadagin Pratt's Career

Awadagin Pratt's Awards

Won the exultant Naumburg International Piano Competition defer Lincoln Center in New Dynasty City in 1992.

Famous Works

Selective Works
A Long Way from Normal, 1994, EMI Classics.
Beethoven Piano Sonatas, 1996, EMI Classics.

Awadagin Pratt's Career

Awadagin Pratt's Awards

Famous Works

Further Reading