Among his generation of concert artists, pianist Awadagin Pratt is acclaimed for his musical insight and intensely involving performances in recital and with symphony orchestras.

Mr. Pratt studied at the Peabody Conservatory of Music where he became the first student in the school’s history to receive diplomas in three performance areas – piano, violin and conducting. 

In 1992, Mr. Pratt won the Naumburg International Piano Competition and two years later was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Since then, he has played numerous recitals throughout the US including performances at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center and Chicago’s Orchestra Hall. His many orchestral performances include appearances with the New York Philharmonic and the Atlanta, Baltimore, St. Louis and Detroit symphonies among many others. Also an experienced conductor, his most recent conducting activities include play/conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh and conducting performances of Porgy and Bess for the Greensboro Opera.

In July 2023, Mr. Pratt joined the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as a Professor of Piano. He is also the Artistic Director of the Art of Piano Festival which takes place in Cincinnati every spring.

Through the Art of the Piano Foundation and inspired by a stanza from T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, Mr. Pratt has commissioned seven composers – Jessie Montgomery, Alvin Singleton, Judd Greenstein, Tyshawn Sorey, Jonathan Bailey Holland, Paola Prestini and Peteris Vasks – to compose works for piano and string orchestra or piano, string orchestra and a Roomful of Teeth. By the end of the 23/24 season, he will have performed Ms. Montgomery’s concerto with over 30 US orchestras, including the Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, Baltimore, Atlanta and Indianapolis symphony and The Minnesota Orchestra. All seven works were recorded in summer 2022 with the chamber orchestra A Far Cry for New Amsterdam Records. 

Awadagin Pratt is a Yamaha artist. For more information, please visit www.awadagin.com