Faculty Recital: Robin McCabe, piano, with Rachelle McCabe

Leonard Bernstein — Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
Johannes Brahms — Variations on a Theme by Haydn for orchestra, Op. 56a "St. Anthony Variations"
Harold Arlen / William Hirtz — Wizard of Oz Fantasy

Robin McCabe, piano
Rachelle McCabe, piano

Bernstein – Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
Brahms – Variations on a Theme by Haydn
William Hirtz – Wizard of Oz Fantasy

The School of Music presents a dynamic program of duo performances by UW piano professor Robin McCabe and her sister, Rachelle McCabe, professor of piano at Oregon State University.

Robin McCabe, piano
Celebrated American pianist Robin McCabe has established herself as one of America’s most communicative and persuasive artists. McCabe’s involvement and musical sensibilities have delighted audiences across the United States, Europe, Canada, and in seven concert tours of the Far East. The United States Department of State sponsored her two South American tours, which were triumphs both artistically and diplomatically.

As noted by the New York Times, “What Ms. McCabe has that raises her playing to such a special level is a strong lyric instinct and confidence in its ability to reach and touch the listener.” The Tokyo Press declared her a “pianistic powerhouse,” and a reviewer in Prague declared, “Her musicianship is a magnet for the listener.” Richard Dyer, the eminent critic of the Boston Globe: "Her brilliant, natural piano playing shows as much independence of mind as of fingers.”

Her recordings have received universal acclaim. Her debut album for Vanguard Records featured the premiere recording of Guido Agosti transcription of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. Critics praised it as “mightily impressive.” Stereo Review described her disc of Bartok as “all that we have come to expect from this artist, a first-rate performance!” She was commissioned to record four albums for the award-winning company Grammofon AB BIS in Stockholm, which remain distributed internationally, including the CD Robin McCabe Plays Liszt, (AB BIS No. 185).

McCabe earned her bachelor of music degree summa cum laude at the University of Washington School of Music, where she studied with Béla Siki, and her master’s and doctorate degrees at the Juilliard School of Music, where she studied with Rudolf Firkusny. She joined the Juilliard faculty in 1978 then returned to the UW in 1987 to accept a position on the piano faculty. In 1994 McCabe was appointed Director of the School of Music, a position she held until 2009. She has held a Ruth Sutton Waters Professorship and a Donald Petersen Professorship in the School of Music. In addition, McCabe is a dedicated arts ambassador and advocate for arts audience development, frequently addressing arts organizations across the country. With colleague Craig Sheppard, she has launched the highly successful Seattle Piano Institute, an intense summer “immersion experience” for gifted and aspiring classical pianists that enjoyed its sixth session in 2015. Also In 2015, McCabe performed and recorded the complete cycle of Beethoven’s ten sonatas for violin and piano, with colleague Maria Larionoff.

The winner of numerous prizes and awards, including the International Concert Artists Guild Competition and a Rockefeller Foundation grant, McCabe was the subject of a lengthy New Yorker Magazine profile, “Pianist’s Progress,” later expanded into a book of the same title.

In 1995 McCabe presented the annual faculty lecture — a concert with commentary — at the University of Washington. She is the first professor of music in the history of the University to be awarded this lectureship. Seattle Magazine selected McCabe as one of 17 current and past University of Washington professors who have had an impact on life in the Pacific Northwest. In 2005, to celebrate its 100th year as an institution, The Juilliard School selected McCabe as one of 100 alumni from 20,000 currently living to be profiled in its centenary publication recognizing distinction and accomplishments in the international world of music, dance, and theater. Today she is a highly-sought teacher at the University of Washington, with students from around the world seeking admission to her studio.

McCabe performs regularly throughout the United States, and in September of 2011 she made her first visit to South Korea. In October of 2015 McCabe gave solo recitals in Beijing, and master classes at the International Beijing Piano Festival. She appears often as an invited jurist for international piano competitions, most recently in New Orleans, San Antonio, and Vancouver, Canada. In June of 2016 she is invited to serve on the jury of the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition.

Rachelle McCabe, piano
Rachelle McCabe, concert pianist and professor of music at Oregon State University, enjoys an international career as artist-teacher and is well known to audiences throughout the Pacific Northwest where she appears frequently as a solo recitalist and highly respected chamber musician. McCabe has performed extensively in the United States, Canada, Southeast Asia and England. In addition to solo piano recitals in Singapore, Cambridge (UK), Malaysia, Seattle, Atlanta, Detroit, Portland, and Washington, D.C., she has been heard on NPR's Performance Today, the CBC, and PBS television.

As concerto soloist she has played with many North American orchestras including the Seattle, Pittsburgh, Oregon and Victoria symphonies. She performs duo-piano recitals with her sister Robin McCabe. As artist teacher, Rachelle McCabe has appeared in many festivals including the Victoria International Festival, The Johanessen Summer School of the Arts, The Highlands Festival in North Carolina, Chamber Music Northwest and the Chintimini Chamber Music Festival. She was a faculty member of The Seattle Piano Institute in 2012, and an adjudicator at the annual Hong Kong Festival in 2008 and 2012. She has also held short-term teaching residencies at schools in Singapore and Malaysia.

At Oregon State University, Rachelle McCabe directs the piano program and is artistic director of Corvallis-OSU Piano International and its prestigious Steinway Recital Series. She directs OSU’s Piano Power camps for high school piano students throughout the Pacific Northwest and co-directs the annual OSU Chamber Music Workshop. On the basis of outstanding teaching, McCabe was named a master teacher in the College of Liberal Arts. She holds a doctorate (D.M.A.) from The University of Michigan where she studied with Theodore Lettvin and Gyorgy Sandor, a master's degree from The Juilliard School where she studied with Ania Dorfmann, and a bachelor's degree from The University of Washington where she studied with Bela Siki.

About Rachelle McCabe

Rachelle McCabe is Professor Emeritus of Music at Oregon State University and an internationally acclaimed concert pianist and artist teacher. She has concertized as soloist and chamber musician throughout North America and the United Kingdom, as well as in Europe, China, and Southeast Asia.

As concerto soloist Rachelle McCabe has appeared with many orchestras including the Seattle Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Victoria Symphony, and the Corvallis-OSU Symphony. Her solo recital performances include concerts at The National Gallery in Washington DC, the Goethe Institute in Singapore, and the Findhorn Institute in Scotland. Her many chamber music partnerships include tours with the Philadelphia String Quartet, clarinetist David Shifrin of the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, Boston violinists Yuri and Dana Mazurkevich, and flutist Torkyl Bye of the Oslo Philharmonic. She performs in chamber music festivals such as the Chintimini Festival in Oregon, the Highlands Festival in North Carolina, Chamber Music Northwest in Oregon, and the Victoria International Music Festival in British Columbia. With her sister Robin McCabe, she performs duo piano concerts nationally and internationally.

Believing in the power of music to affect change, Rachelle McCabe has created innovative programs with acclaimed writer/philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore to address the crisis of global extinction and climate change. They have taken their programs across the USA and Canada. Their powerful program, Variations on a Theme of Extinction, weaves Rachelle’s performance of Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme of Corelli with Kathleen’s spoken narrative. An acclaimed film version entitled The Extinction Variations was created by Brooklyn-based filmmaker Nara Garber in 2019.

Rachelle McCabe is Artistic Director of Corvallis-OSU Piano International with its prestigious Steinway Piano Series, community concerts and festivals, and educational outreach programs. She also co-directs the annual OSU Chamber Music Workshop, a summer camp for young musicians.

A highly respected teacher, Professor McCabe taught hundreds of college piano students at Oregon State University until her retirement as a full professor from the university in 2020. She was named a Master Teacher at Oregon State. She now teaches an independent piano studio and appears frequently as an artist teacher and adjudicator, nationally and internationally. In the 2022-23 season she judged competitions and festivals in Seattle (Seattle Young Artists Music Festival), Hong Kong (The Hong Kong Schools Music Festival), Portland (Oregon Music Teachers Association), and Alaska (Alaska Piano Competition in Anchorage), and taught master classes in Atlanta (Emory University), Seattle (Seattle Pacific University) and at the University of Oregon in Eugene. In 2018, she taught master classes in Beijing at Renmin University, China Conservatory and Capital Normal University. Earlier in her career, Rachelle McCabe served as an Artist in Residence and was appointed as affiliate faculty member at La Salle College of the Arts in Singapore.

Rachelle McCabe holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The University of Michigan where she studied with Gyorgy Sandor and Theodore Lettvin. She earned her Master’s degree from The Juilliard School where she studied with Ania Dorfmann, and her Bachelor’s from The University of Washington with Béla Siki. Additional teachers were Willard Schultz, Gary Graffman, and Leon Fleisher.

http://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/users/rachelle-mc-cabe

About Robin McCabe

Robin McCabe has established herself as one of America's most communicative and persuasive artists, delighting audiences across the United States, Europe, Canada and in nine concert tours of the Far East. Winner of the International Concert Artists Guild Competition and recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation grant, Robin McCabe was the subject of a New Yorker magazine profile, "Pianist's Progress," later expanded into a book of the same title. A member of the Juilliard faculty from 1978 to 1987, she joined the piano faculty at the University of Washington in 1987 and was director of the School of Music from 1994 to 2009. McCabe holds a Michiko Morita Miyamoto Professorship in Piano at the UW.

https://music.washington.edu/people/robin-mccabe