About THE FESTIVAL

The San Francisco International Piano Festival was founded in 2017 and has since established itself as one of the major piano festivals in the country. Pianist Magazine included the piano festival in its 2019 list of “The top 20 music festivals around the world to attend through the rest of the summer” and described it as “a new and exciting kid on the block of west coast piano culture”. In addition to presenting over a dozen San Francisco artist debuts and world premieres, the festival continues to celebrate the richness and diversity of artists living in Bay Area. Its multifaceted and approachable programming has appealed to audiences from Herbst Theater to PianoFight, the Empress Theatre in Vallejo to the Legion of Honor. The Piano Festival has established strong partnerships with co-presenting organizations like Old First Concerts, Noontime Concerts, Lieder Alive!, Young Chamber Musicians, and the Maybeck Studio for the Performing Arts. Performances take place at a variety of venues chosen based on the repertoire, artists, instrument, and acoustics. This flexible presentation model allows for the festival to reach a wide audience and welcome many listeners new to classical music.

A hallmark of the Piano Festival is the integration of contemporary and standard repertoire, vocal/instrumental chamber music and solo piano literature, formal and informal concert experiences. This includes annual collaboration with Young Chamber Musicians in Burlingame in addition to prominent professional ensembles like the Telegraph Quartet and Alexander String Quartet. Mezzo-soprano Kindra Scharich has been featured prominently along with soprano Heidi Moss, tenor Michael Jankosky, and bass Kirk Eichelberger, all of whom sang solos and chorus for Beethoven’s 9th Symphony transcribed by Liszt for solo piano performed by Bobby Mitchell.

In 2020 and 2021, the festival presented its programs completely free to the public in acknowledgement of the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on our world. The 2020 season was completely virtual while the 2021 festival took a step closer in returning to live performance with a hybrid format that allowed those audience that felt comfortable to attend in person while those that did not could tune in from home. The festival also took the opportunity to establish its own 501(c)3 during this time and can now accept tax-deductible contributions of its own accord.

In 2022, we return to a more vibrant, live presentation that will welcome audiences back to hear some of their favorite performers over the past five years along with some exciting debuts. The programming also celebrated J.S. Bach’s seminal Well-Tempered Clavier which was published 300 years ago. Bay Area composer Kurt Erickson’s 17:22 will receive its world premiere at the festival in honor of this important anniversary.