Richard Zimdars

Richard Zimdars, Despy Karlas Professor of Piano, combines the roles of teacher, scholar, and performer. His students have won prizes in state and national competitions, have been awarded the Fulbright Grant for piano study in Germany, and hold college teaching positions in the United States, Brazil, and South Korea. He has given master classes at London's Royal Academy of Music, Dublin's Royal Irish Academy of Music, the Stuttgart and Detmold Musikhochschulen, and Oberlin and San Francisco Conservatories.

Dr. Zimdars has performed and lectured in England, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Brazil, Canada, and the United States. He was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Grant, first prize in the Music Teachers National Association Collegiate Artist Competition, and a Fulbright Grant for piano study in Germany. From 2006-2008 he served on the Fulbright National Screening Committee for piano applicants.

His discography, on the Bay Cities, Spectrum, ACA, and Albany labels, includes the four violin and piano sonatas of Charles Ives, the complete piano music of Roy Harris, and solo and chamber works of American composers Randall Thompson, Leslie Bassett, Bernard Heiden, and Claude Baker.  His latest CD on Albany, released July 2009, features solo piano works of Copland, Ives, Cowell, and Rudhyar. Some of these recordings may be purchased here.

Dr. Zimdars' articles and reviews have appeared in Clavier, The Piano Quarterly, Journal of the American Liszt Society, Notes, Clavier Companion, and The American Music Teacher. He served on the editorial board of the last named publication from 2002-05 and is currently a contributing editor for Clavier Companion magazine.

Indiana University Press has published his translations from the German titled The Piano Master Classes of Hans von Bülow and The Piano Master Classes of Franz Liszt . He has lectured on the piano teaching of Franz Liszt in Budapest, Dublin, Canada, and throughout the United States.  He is director of the 2011 American Liszt Festival celebrating the bicentennial of the birth of Franz Liszt, scheduled for the University of Georgia February 17-19, 2011.