 Joseph Banowetz has been described byFanfare Record Review (U.S.) as "a giant among keyboard artists of our time," by Russia's News (Moscow) as "a magnificent virtuoso, who amazed the public by his deep understanding of the composer's spirit," and by Ruch Muzyczny (Warsaw) as "a virtuoso in the noblest sense of the word." A graduate with a First Prize from the Vienna Akademie für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, his teachers have included Carl Friedberg (a pupil of Clara Schumann) and György Sándor (a pupil of Béla Bartók). Banowetz has been heard as recitalist and orchestral soloist on five continents, with performances in recent seasons with such orchestras as the St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) Philharmonic, the Moscow State Symphony, the Prague and Bratislava Radio Orchestras, the Budapest Symphony, the New Zealand Symphony (on a twelve-concert national tour), the Beijing Central Philharmonic, Barcelona Concert Society Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and the Shanghai Symphony.Banowetz was awarded the Liszt Medal by the Hungarian Liszt Society in Budapest, in recognition of his outstanding performances of Liszt and the Romantic literature.
Banowetz has recorded over thirty compact discs for the Naxos, Marco Polo, Warner Brothers, Toccata Classics, and Altarus labels, these including the Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 1, Liszt Concertos and Totentanz, d'Albert Concertos, and world-premiere recordings of all eight of the Anton Rubinstein piano and orchestra works, the Balakirev Fantasy on Russian Folk Songs, and the Taneyev Piano Concerto. His recorded solo repertory includes music of Bach, Busoni, Balakirev, Chopin, Debussy, Godowsky, Huang, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Rubinstein, Schumann, Stevenson, and Taneyev. One of the Rubinstein orchestra and piano series was named by Fanfare Record Review (U.S.) as an outstanding international release for 1993, and a similar citation was given in 1987 by the German Music Critics Association for his world-premiere of works by Balakirev.
Banowetz is also internationally recognized as an author and editor. His book, The Pianist's Guide to Pedaling (University of Indiana Press, U.S.) has to date been printed in seven languages. Many of his piano editions have been translated into Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. He has served on major piano juries such as the Arthur Rubinstein Master Piano Competition (Israel), the Scottish International Piano Competition (Glasgow), the Belarussian International Piano Competition (Minsk), the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition (U.S.), the 2001 World Piano Competition (U.S.), the Antonin Dvořák International Piano Competition (Czech Republic), the Hilton Head International Piano Competition (U.S.), and the Louisiana International Piano Competition (U.S.). Banowetz has been invited to teach and lecture at many schools, including the St. Petersburg Conservatory, the Juilliard School in New York City, London's Royal College and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, theArtmúsic Escola de Música I Dansa of Barcelona, the Chopin Academy of Warsaw, Hong Kong's Academy for the Performing Arts, and China's national Conservatories of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. To date, Banowetz has concertized in 35 countries worldwide, with most recent performances at festivals in the Czech Republic, Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, and Singapore.
Students of Joseph Banowetz have been awarded important national and international competition prizes, including first prizes at the Hilton Head International Piano Competition (U.S.), Shreveport Symphony International Piano Competition (U.S.), Missouri Southern International Piano Competition (U.S.), Los Angeles International Liszt Competition, and McMahan International Piano Competition (U.S.). Other awards have been received at such competitions as the Minsk (Belarus) International Piano Competition, the Varna (Bulgaria) International Orchestral Soloist Competition, and the Louisiana International Piano Competition (U.S.). Several of his students have been heard on internationally distributed commercial compact disc recordings. His former student, Petronel Malan, received a Grammy nomination from the Recording Academy (U.S.) for one of her recordings on the Hänssler label.
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