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Anthony Newman

Professor Emeritus of Music

Described by Wynton Marsalis as “the high priest of Bach” and by Time Magazine as “the high priest of the harpsichord,” Anthony Newman continues his 50-year career as America’s leading organist, harpsichordist, and Bach specialist.

His prodigious recording output includes more than 170 CDs on such labels as CBS, SONY, Deutsche Grammaphon, and Vox Masterworks. In 1989, Stereo Review voted his original instrument recording of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto as “Record of the Year.” His collaboration with Wynton Marsalis on Sony’s In Gabriel’s Garden was the best-selling classical CD in 1997.

As keyboardist, he has performed more than 60 times at Lincoln Center in New York City and has collaborated with many of the greats of music, including Kathleen Battle, Itzhak Perlman, Eugenia Zukerman, John Nelson, Jean-Pierre Rampal, James Levine, Lorin Mazel, Mstislav Rostropovich, Seji Osawa, and Leonard Bernstein.

As conductor, he has worked with the greats of chamber music orchestras: St. Paul Chamber, L.A. Chamber, Budapest Chamber, Scottish Chamber, and the 92nd St. Y Chamber Orchestras. Larger symphonic groups include Seattle (more than 40 appearances), Los Angeles, San Diego, Calgary, Denver, and New York Philharmonic Orchestras.

No less prodigious a composer, his works have been heard in Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Krakow, Warsaw, New York, and London. His output includes four symphonies, four concerti, three large choral works, two operas (Nicole, and Massacre, in collaboration with Charles Flowers), three CDs of piano music, and a large assortment of chamber, organ, and guitar works. Complete works are published by Ellis Press. Newman has received 30 consecutive composer’s awards from ASCAP.

Newman is music director of “Bach Works,” New York’s all Bach association, and Bedford Chamber Concerts; is on the visiting committee for the Department of Musical Instruments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and on the board of the Musical Quarterly Magazine. Newman is also music director of St. Matthews Episcopal Church in Bedford, N.Y.

Newman is a Yamaha artist and a proud alumnus of Young Concert Artists.