Sara Davis Buechner is one of the leading concert pianists of our time. She has been praised worldwide as a musician of “intelligence, integrity and all-encompassing technical prowess” (The New York Times); lauded for her “fascinating and astounding virtuosity” (Philippine Star), and her “thoughtful artistry in the full service of music” (Washington Post); and celebrated for her performances which are “never less than 100% committed and breathtaking” (Pianoforte Magazine, London). Japan’s InTune magazine says, “When it comes to clarity, flawless tempo selection, phrasing and precise control of timbre, Buechner has no superior.”
In her twenties, Ms. Buechner was the winner of a bouquet of prizes at the world’s premier piano competitions — Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, Leeds, Salzburg, Sydney and Vienna. She won the gold medal at the 1984 Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, and was a bronze medalist of the 1986 Tschaikowsky International Piano Competition in Moscow.
With an active repertoire of more than 100 piano concertos ranging from A (Albeníz) to Z (Zimbalist) — one of the largest of any concert pianist today — she has appeared as soloist with many of the world’s prominent orchestras, including New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Saint Louis, San Francisco, Montréal, Edmonton, Vancouver, Victoria, Honolulu, Qingdao and Tokyo; the CBC Radio Orchestra, Japan Philharmonic, City of Birmingham (U.K.) Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Moscow Radio Symphony, Kuopio (Finland) Philharmonic, Slovak Philharmonic and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León (Spain). Audiences throughout North America have applauded Ms. Buechner’s recitals in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center and the Hollywood Bowl; and she enjoys wide success throughout Asia where she tours annually.
Sara Davis Buechner’s numerous recordings have received prominent critical appraisal. The New York Times greeted her recent Koch International CD of piano music by Rudolf Friml as a “revelation,” and devoted the front page of its Sunday Arts & Leisure section to her 1997 world première recording of the Bach-Busoni “Goldberg” Variations. Her George Gershwin album was selected as a “Record of the Month” by Stereophile magazine, and her traversal of Hollywood piano concertos by Bernard Herrmann and Franz Waxman won Germany’s Deutsches Schallplatten Preis for best soundtrack. Ms. Buechner’s extensive discography also includes rare American music of Dana Suesse, Pauline Alpert and Joseph Lamb, as well as the the complete piano music of Miklós Rózsa.
Ms. Buechner’s artistry can be experienced on numerous online sites, and on her own website and YouTube channel. She has also recorded many disks for the Yamaha Disklavier, Piano Soft and Grand Touch systems; and her work may also be heard on the recent DVD of Carl Dreiser’s 1925 silent film masterpiece Master of the House, available through the Criterion Collection.
As a collaborative artist, she is one of the few pianists who actively performs piano scores to silent movies, notably the 150-minute long restored version of Ben-Hur (1925) at Lincoln Center and elsewhere. Ms. Buechner has also collaborated on dance projects with choreographer Neta Pulvermacher, performance artist Nori Nke Aka and mimist Yayoi Hirano; and toured extensively as pianist with the Mark Morris Dance Group.
Sara Davis Buechner has given premieres of important new music and film scores by Larry Bell, Dorothy Chang, Stephen Chatman, Pierre Charvet, John Corigliano, Richard Danielpour, Ray Green, Miriam Hyde, Dick Hyman, Vitězslavá Kaprálová, Henry Martin, Jared Miller, Joaquín Nin-Culmell, Yukiko Nishimura, David Raksin, Miklós Rózsa and Wim Zwaag.
Profiles of Ms. Buechner have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Macleans, Paris Match, Piano Today, Noticias del Argentina, Out, Blade and Frontiers magazines; and she has been featured on the television programs Entertainment Tonight, Extra, In the Life and Bynon. Appearances on radio include profiles on NPR’s The Fishko Files and Performance Today, WFMT’s Dame Myra Hess Recital Series, WNYC’s New Sounds with John Schaefer, at WQXR’s Greene Space, and on Canada’s CBC Westcoast Performance and Richardson’s Roundup.
Sara Davis Buechner is the most prominent transgender musician appearing on the classical concert stage today. She received the Eleanor Roosevelt Award of Brandeis University, and is a member of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. She often presents talks and workshops to LGBTQIA+ groups, and has received praise for her solo autobiographical theater show Of Pigs and Pianos, which premiered at New York City’s TheaterLab in 2021 to rave reviews.
In 2016 Sara Davis Buechner joined the prestigious piano faculty of Temple University in Philadelphia. She is a former faculty member of New York University and the University of British Columbia, and Honorary Visiting Professor of Music at the University of Shanghai. Ms. Buechner has presented lectures and masterclasses worldwide, notably at the Royal Academy in London, the Juilliard School in New York City, Indiana University, the Eastman School of Music, Shanghai Conservatory, and the Kobe-Yamate Gakuen in Osaka, Japan. She is a regular adjudicator of the Concert Artists Guild International Music Competition in New York, and has also served as a juror for the Rudolf Firkušný International Piano Competition in Prague, and the International E-Competition in Fairbanks, Alaska. In addition, Ms. Buechner has served as principal music consultant for Dover Publications International.
A fan of baseball worldwide, she has been a featured performer at the New York Mets Pride Night festivities at Citifield, and in 2007 was anointed an honorary member of the Hanshin Tigers baseball team of Osaka, Japan.
In 2022, Sara Davis Buechner marked her 35th year as a dedicated Yamaha artist.