Oni Buchanan, Piano

Biography

Oni Buchanan is a young American pianist who focuses her virtuosity and inventiveness on creating and bringing to life themed concerts full of originality, curiosity, vitality, and a wide range of works. Her current projects include a three-program "Poetry in Piano" series, featuring solo piano literature inspired by poetry, with repertoire drawn from different cultures and different times throughout history.

Ms. Buchanan has performed solo recitals throughout the U.S. and abroad, with recent international recitals at the Institute Brasileiro de Administracao Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, and at both the University of Guelph and Conrad Grebel University College in Ontario, Canada. She has given recent solo recitals at the Honest Brook Music Festival (NY), the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Harvard University Hall Concert Series, Washington & Jefferson College (PA), Hobart & William Smith Colleges (NY), Whittier College (CA), the Kimball Theatre (Williamsburg, VA), the Morris Museum of Art (Augusta, GA), the University of Dayton Arts Series, and the Mount Olive College Recital Series (NC), among many others. Ms. Buchanan has performed the Chopin e-minor Concerto with the Waynesboro Orchestra (VA). In addition, Ms. Buchanan has given ensemble performances in New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall, Harvard University, and at the New School of Music in Cambridge, MA.

Oni Buchanan received her Master's degree in piano performance from the New England Conservatory of Music, and her Bachelor's degree in music from the University of Virginia. She pursued three years of graduate-level music studies at the University of Iowa School of Music while pursuing an M.F.A. in poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. In addition to her music degrees, Oni Buchanan holds a B.A. in English from the University of Virginia and an M.F.A. in poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her second poetry manuscript, Spring, has just been selected by Mark Doty as a winner of the 2007 National Poetry Series, and will be published by the University of Illinois Press. Her first book of poems, What Animal, won the University of Georgia Press Contemporary Poetry Series competition and was published in October 2003.

Ms. Buchanan studied piano with Daniel Epstein, Patricia Zander, Uriel Tsachor, and Mimi Tung, as well as studying at the Aspen Music Festival in the studios of Joseph Kalichstein and Gabriel Chodos, and pursuing additional studies with Stephen Drury and Russell Sherman. She has also been an active participant and performer in the New England Conservatory Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice. She currently maintains a private piano studio in Boston, and serves as an online poetry mentor for the Anna Akhmatova Foundation.

The International Music Foundation gratefully acknowledges the Music Conservatory of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University for providing rehearsal space for today's concert.