John Perry, distinguished artist and teacher, earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Eastman School of Music and was a student of Cecile Genhart. During those summers, he worked with the eminent Frank Mannheimer. Recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, he continued studies in Europe for four years where he worked with Wladyslav Kedra, Polish concert artist and professor at the Akademie für Musik in Vienna, and Carlo Zecchi, renowned conductor, pianist, and head of the piano department at the Santa Cecilia Academy of Music in Rome.
Mr. Perry has won numerous awards including the highest prizes in both the Busoni and Viotti international piano competitions in Italy and special honors at the Marguerite Long International Competition in Paris. Since then he has performed extensively throughout Europe and North America to great critical acclaim. Also a respected chamber musician, Mr. Perry has collaborated with some of the finest instrumentalists in the world.
He also enjoys an international reputation as a teacher, presenting master classes throughout the world. He often is a jury member at some of the most prestigious international piano competitions. His students have been prize winners in most major competitions and include two first-prize winners in the Rubinstein, four first-prize winners in the Music Teacher's National Association national competition, and first-prize winners in the Naumburg National Chopin competition, the Cleveland Competition, Beethoven Foundation competition, the Federated Music Clubs, and the YKA, AMSC, and YMF competitions, and finalists in the Chopin International in Warsaw, the Van Cliburn, the Queen Elisabeth, Leeds, Dublin, Busoni, Viotti and the Three Rivers competitions.
Mr. Perry is Professor of Music at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, piano faculty at California State University Northridge in Los Angeles, Artistic Director of the Southern California Music Institute, and Professor Emeritus of the USC Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles. During the summer he is artist-professor at the Lake Como International Piano Academy, the Banff Center in Alberta, Canada, the International Music Festival in Perugia, Italy, the Sarasota Music Festival in Florida, the Orford Music Festival in Quebec, the Amalfi Coast Music Festival in Italy, the Internationaler Klaviersommer Cochem, Germany, the Morning Music Bridge Program in Calgary, Alberta, and the Montecito Festival in Santa Barbara. In January he is main guest artist at the Sydney Piano Festival in Australia.
His recordings are available on the Telefunken, Musical Heritage Society, CBC, ACA and Fox labels.
Reach Professor Perry through e-mail at: [email protected]