Elizabeth Schumann

2004 GILMORE YOUNG ARTIST Elizabeth Schumann
Pianist Elizabeth Schumann has a diverse career portfolio of projects, recordings, and performances which have brought her all over the world as recitalist, chamber musician, and concerto soloist.

Ms. Schumann has performed solo recitals and chamber music concerts worldwide, in such venues as the Kennedy Center, Vienna’s Bösendorfer Saal, Toronto’s Koerner Hall, and Montreal’s Place des Arts. Featured at the International UNICEF benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina Victims, the Cannes Film Festival, the Gilmore Festival, Australia’s Huntington Festival, the Musica Viva chamber music series, the Ravinia “Rising Stars” Series, and National Public Radio’s “Performance Today,” her recitals have been broadcast live on public radio and television in cities around the world, including Washington D.C., New York, Sydney, Cleveland, Montréal, Dallas, and Chicago. Ms. Schumann gave the world premiere performance of Carl Vine’s Sonata No. 3, which the composer dedicated to her.

Passionate about creating public access to the arts, Ms. Schumann founded Piano Theatre, an artist group formed to engage audiences with innovative combinations of classical music, theatre, literature, art, and technology.  She also founded and is president of Project Classical, Inc.¸ a 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to support artist led initiatives that encourage public education and appreciation of classical music. Concerned with the declining funding for arts education in the US, Ms. Schumann devised and directed Piano Carnival, a project to introduce free, high quality classical concert music to children in areas without arts education.

​Carrying on the pedagogical tradition of her teacher, Sergei Babayan, Ms. Schumann has been on faculty at Itzhak Perlman’s Perlman Music Program and the Crowden Chamber Workshop, and she is the director of the Schumann Studio, a classical recording space in San Francisco.