Steven Mayer

Since 2012, the noted piano studio of Steven Mayer at the University of Denver has produced 6 out of 12 first prizewinners of the Lamont School of Music's coveted Solo Honors Competition, as well as prize winners in several international competitions. Formerly Professor of Piano at the Manhattan School of Music and the International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Mannes, he has also been a Visiting Lecturer in Piano at UCLA. Mayer's masterclasses have taken him to Berlin's Universitat der Kunste, Copenhagen's Royal Conservatory, the University of Indiana at Bloomington, the Eastman’s School of Music’s Chautauqua Festival, the New England Conservatory, the Rotterdam Conservatory, the Longy School of Boston, the University of Texas at Austin, the National Academy of Music in Bulgaria, and Holland's Utrechts Conservatorium.

Credited by the New York Times with “piano playing at its most awesome,” Mayer's lifetime association with Naxos Records includes the 2021 documentary film “Charles Ives in America” as well as the CD's "Ives: Concord Sonata," voted by Gramophone as one of three top performances of the work from a field of over 30 recordings, the “Liszt: Wagner and Weber Transcriptions,” Louis Moreau Gottschalk's “Night in the Tropics” featuring Mayer's own solo piano transcription of Gottschalk's Symphony No.1, “Art Tatum Improvisations,” “Liszt vs. Thalberg” (ASV) and “Max Reger: Piano Concerto in F Minor” with the Hague Philharmonic (Leonarda).

Mayer's 2021 Dimension Media documentary “The Black Virtuoso Tradition” celebrates "an American musical phenomenon inspired by Mayer's eloquent advocacy of such Black piano geniuses as Art Tatum, Jelly Roll Morton and Fats Waller," in the words of the noted cultural historian Joseph Horowitz. Winner of the Carnegie Hall International American Music Competition, Mayer's acclaimed PBS televised performance of Art Tatum's "Tiger Rag" has received over 100,000 views on YouTube.

Prizewinner in the Busoni International Competition, the University of Maryland William Kapell Competition and the Gina Bachauer International Competition, Mayer's 2021 Bachauer International Foundation on-demand documentary "Color and Synthesis" with violinist Igor Pikayzen features Franck's Sonata for Violin and Piano. A sought after chamber music coach and performer, Mayer has made regular appearances at chamber festivals including Bargemusic, Banff, the Bay Chamber Festival, Mainly Mozart, the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, the Minnesota Sommerfest, and the Moab Festival in Utah.

Winner of the Grand Prix du Disque Liszt for his ASV disc of Liszt with the London Symphony Orchestra, Gramophone praised Mayer's recording of Liszt's Totentanz as being "among the best in the catalogue." Mayer's world premiere of Liszt's De Profundis and Concerto No.3 with the Residentie Orkest in The Hague followed appearances as soloist with the San Francisco Symphony under Herbert Blomstedt, the Boston Pops under Keith Lockhart, the Rotterdam Philharmonic under James Conlon, The Minnesota Orchestra under Sir Neville Mariner and Leonard Slatkin, the New York Chamber Symphony under Gerard Schwarz, the Leipzig Gewandhaus under Emanuel Krivine and the Prague Symphony under Jiri Belohlavek.