Pauline Martin’s Washington debut captured the Washington Post headline Pauline Martin’s Dazzling Debut. The Canadian born pianist has earned international recognition for her solo and chamber music performances and has been featured on national radio broadcasts in Canada, the US and Europe. She has performed as concerto soloist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the New American Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra London Canada, the Florida West Coast Symphony, among others, including a live 2009 performance of Mozart’s Concerto K. 365 with the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra (Charles Burke, conductor), recorded for broadcast to an audience of over a billion viewers by Chinese National Television.
Pauline Martin´s credits include a first-round Grammy nomination for Hobson’s Choice (St. Clair Trio: works by Sir Malcolm Arnold, Koch International Classics) and a 2000 Chamber Music America-WQXR/FM award (Old Acquaintances St Clair Trio and Friends: works by Franz Waxman, also Koch). Her diversity in standard through contemporary repertoire is represented on the Naxos American Classics’ CD Imaginary Creatures (works by James Hartway) and Postcard from Europe with clarinetist George Stoffan (Kipling House Recordings). Of her world premiere performance of ‘Configurations’ for piano solo, composer Leslie Bassett wrote that she “played [them] as I had always hoped they would be played. In my view… the definitive performance, upon which subsequent performances may be modeled”; similar praise from composers Sir Malcolm Arnold, George Crumb, Susan Botti, Gary Schocker, James Hartway and Lawrence Singer speaks to her respect for every aspect of the individual composer´s intentions.
Ms. Martin has been active as soloist and in collaboration with leading instrumentalists at a host of regional and international festivals, including the Ann Arbor, Sarasota, Summer Serenades (Rockville, Maryland), Grove (MI), Mackinac Island, Detroit Symphony Tchaikovsky and Meadowbrook Music Festivals, the Aria International Summer Music Academy, Winter Days Festival of Scandinavia and the Icelandic Festival of Manitoba, as well as several Irving S. Gilmore Foundation Educational programs. A dedicated teacher, she celebrates the achievements of her numerous Michigan State, Wayne State and Oakland University graduates, who now enjoy thriving careers in music. Her own training, beginning with her mother Lilja Martin, led her to Indiana University to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Piano Performance as a student of Menahem Pressler; she went on to complete a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Michigan with Theodore Lettvin and resident artists Gary Graffman, and André Watts.
Pauline Martin is a Steinway Artist. She currently balances her performances and the artistic direction of Chamber Soloists of Detroit with private instruction at her West Bloomfield, Michigan home, where she resides with her husband, Haukur Ásgeirsson.
Visit Pauline Martin’s professional website www.paulinemartin.com.