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By the time he joined the ranks of Université de Montréal’s music faculty in 2022, then-35-year-old American pianist Henry Kramer had already garnered impressive silverware, experience, and accolades. Prizewinner at prestigious competitions such as the Queen Elizabeth, Honens, Montreal, Shanghai, and Miami’s National Chopin Competition, Kramer previously held teaching positions at U.S. universities in Georgia, Missouri, and Massachusetts. In 2019, he received the Avery Fisher Grant awarded to the most promising young American soloists.
As successful as his competition track record is, Kramer espouses a pragmatic philosophy in terms of career building. “Today, the need for a competition spotlight or a specific recording isn’t as crucial as it once was,” he says. “There are new ways to gain exposure. A strong social media following can translate into actual engagements.”
Online platforms such as YouTube or Instagram allow artists to build a large social media community by producing content that people love. Kramer recognizes alternative career paths can suit some types of personalities better than traditional models. Being successful in a competition “takes a very thick skin and a lot of ambition. There are other paths that more sensitive artists and performers can take,” he says.
Young concert artists need to ask themselves what it is they truly seek out of the competition circuit. “Having gone through competitions and won prizes, you end up on the other side realizing you’ve been seeking validation. Going into a competition, you need to consider what comes after as well. If you’re not self-validated or clear on what you want to do, you can get lost. When you’re genuinely engaged in something, people are drawn to it naturally,” he says.
Thanks to his training, Kramer is connected to a long lineage of pianists leading back to Busoni, Liszt, Chopin, and Beethoven.
He appreciates that the legacy of Leon Fleisher, one of his teachers, is shared among his piano colleagues at the Université de Montréal faculty. While strongly rooted in the musical ideas contained in the score, Kramer draws inspiration from multiple sources as he prepares his interpretations. While learning Prokofiev’s Second Concerto as an undergraduate student at Juilliard, he was taking a Russian literature class. “Reading works that Prokofiev would have known, like Dostoevsky, influenced me deeply,” says Kramer.
Pedagogically, Kramer strives to transmit a sense of agency at the instrument and the ability to communicate expressively through sound. “Most importantly, I want my students to leave with a distinct voice at the instrument, where their sound and interpretation carry strength and presence. I think of my job like training an actor—providing a voice, technique, and articulation. A career can take many forms, but if that essential element is missing, it’s hard to attract audiences as a pianist,” he says.
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