pianist
Personal Information
Born in on March 6, 1966, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; parents, Mildred (a college professor) and Theodore (a college professor) Pratt.
Education: Studied piano and violin at the University of Illinois and went on to graduate from the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore.
Career
Classical pianist. Albums include: two recital albums; A Long Way From Normal, 1994; Beethoven Piano Sonatas, 1996; Live From South Africa, 1997; Transformations, 1999. Also founded the Pratt Music Foundation.
Life's Work
Pianist Awadagin Pratt has amazed and astounded both critics and audiences with his diverse and engaging interpretations of classical music. He won the Naumburg International Piano Competition and hasn't slowed down since. He has performed and conducted numerous concerts as well as released several albums displaying a unique style that set him apart from most of his contemporaries.
Pratt is an engaging and exciting new presence in the world of classical music, where his passionate playing and unique interpretations have invigorated works by such composers as Brahms, Beethoven, Franck, and Liszt. Pratt, however, has garnered as much attention for superficialities that set him apart on the classical concert stage as he has for his musical prowess. First of all, he is young--in his early 30s--and he is black. He wears his shoulder-length hair in dreadlocks. Pratt--whose first name is pronounced ah-wah-DODGE-in--told Newsweek's Yahlin Chang that people who learn he is a musician often assume he is part of a rock band. That is something, however, he finds uninteresting. "I don't have an interest in pop music," he said. "By and large, I find it to be boring. Rhythmically boring, harmonically boring, and melodically possibly interesting but for a very short time."
Robin P. Robinson , writing in Emerge magazine, said Pratt "challenges the establishment and fans alike, forcing them to rethink the way music is perceived and heard." In the New York Times, James Barron called Pratt "a hot young pianist with a big sound and a knack for tackling fast, risky passages." And Robert Mann, president of the Naumburg Foundation, said the young pianist "has a rare gift. Very few artists create a sense that the music is theirs."
Awadagin Pratt was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on March 6, 1966, and began studying piano when he was six years old. In 1975 his family moved to Normal, Illinois, where his parents, Mildred and Theodore Pratt, were professors of social work and nuclear physics, respectively. For Awadagin--who began playing the piano at age six--and his younger sister, Menah, the home environment included a strict regimen of piano and violin lessons, tennis lessons, and regular practice sessions. Attending public schools in Normal, he was active in athletics, and was on the tennis team at Normal Community High School, played doubles tennis with his sister, played on basketball teams, and competed in local sports tournaments. "I was aware that I showed some reasonable level of proficiency (as a musician), but it was never a prodigy-type thing," he told Robinson. "I was much more involved in tennis. My sister and I were both ranked regionally." Pratt, in fact, appropriated his dreadlock hairstyle from tennis star Yannick Noah.
Pratt's interest in music soon deepened, and upon graduation from high school, he enrolled at the age of 16 at the University of Illinois, majoring in music and studying piano, violin, and conducting. At age 18, he declared himself financially independent from his parents because they disapproved of his plans to be a performer rather than a music instructor. After three years at Illinois, he prepared to transfer to another institution. The New England Conservatory accepted him as a violinist but not as a pianist, while the Cleveland Institute accepted him as a pianist, but not as a violinist. Pratt elected to attend the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore, where he became the first person in the school's 137-year history to graduate with three areas of concentration: piano, violin and conducting. In 1990, he decided to focus on the piano and conducting--and let the violin go.
Won The Naumburg Competition
Pratt burst onto the scene in 1992, when he won the prestigious Naumburg International Piano Competition at Lincoln Center in New York City. He was the first African American to win an international instrumental competition. He is described as an independent and strong-willed man who has brought a challenging style and a sensual, intellectual virtuosity to classical music. "Pratt plays with a full-bodied intensity that can be at turns intimate and grandly heart-wrenching," Chang wrote. "He has a story to tell, and you can hear him agonizing over every twist... .Pratt commands your unfailing attention--without ever getting ostentatious."
Pratt's victory in the Naumburg Competition in May of 1992--and the $5,000 prize, lucrative 40-city concert tour, and recording contract it brought him--came just in time. He had passed up another competition the previous month because he couldn't scrape together the $60 entrance fee. Even so, he never lost sight of his purpose. After winning Naumburg, Pratt told People magazine: "The audience--the people--you want them to be moved by your music. I always figured if I had that going for me, everything else would work out--regardless of whether someone thought I should cut my hair."
After several major concert successes, Pratt was awarded the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1994, and his full-time concert career continued at a rapid pace. He signed a recording contract with Angel/EMI in 1993. He was the first black instrumentalist since Andre Watts to get a recording contract with a major label. His first two releases were recital albums, with the initial album, A Long Way from Normal, released in 1994, featuring works by Brahms, Bach, Franck, and Liszt. Reviewers raved about his ability to bring fire and freshness to familiar works, including Franck's Prelude, Chorale and Fugue. "Pratt has plenty of taste, artistry, and insight, all of which are immediately apparent in his comparatively light-textured, deftly colored rendition of Liszt's Funerailles," Stereo Review magazine opined. "(He) seems to be a rare bird among competition winners: He's at home in the virtuoso repertory but comes across best in more introspective works that require genuine artistry ... . (T)his is a wonderfully satisfying and promising debut album."
Pratt's repertoire puts a new spin on classic compositions. "He leans toward ... probing, dense pieces by composers such as Brahms, Franck, and Liszt, rather than the more commercially popular Mozart or Vivaldi," Robinson wrote in Emerge. "Some critics have found Pratt's style and interpretation of the music a bit disconcerting because it doesn't always sound the way they're accustomed to hearing it. The criticism didn't faze him. As far as he was concerned, no two musicians should be able to play the same piece of music exactly the same way. 'If one does completely play, internalizes the music, and comes to terms with it, without concern for how it will be perceived, it's bound to sound different,'" Pratt told Robinson. "'I want to leave an audience with a sense of what these pieces of music are all about, why the composers were so moved they had to write it down on paper.'" In his interview with Newsweek's Chang, Pratt said, "I'll listen to five or six recordings (of a composition), and all the musicians are doing the same thing. And the interpretation will make no sense."
Performed At Many Concerts and Recitals
Initially featured in recitals and concerto performances as a Beethoven interpreter, his concert career took him to New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Los Angeles. He appeared on the September of 1994 PBS television concert honoring Mystislav Rostropovitch, broadcast live from the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. A concert appearance at the White House, at the invitation of President and Mrs. Bill Clinton, followed. He would perform again at the White House in 2000. He also began conducting during this time. Concert appearances with major symphony orchestras during the 1994-95 season included performances with the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras, the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington D.C., and the Minnesota Orchestra. He also performed with the Atlanta, St. Louis, and Cincinnati Symphony orchestras. Pratt made his debuts at Chicago's Ravinia Festival, Cleveland's Blossom Music Festival, and the Caramoor Music Festival in the summer of 1995.
Pratt had a full and demanding schedule as well during the 1995-96 concert season, including debut appearances as soloist with the Pittsburgh, Detroit, and New Jersey Symphony orchestras and the Buffalo Philharmonic, and return engagements with the Atlanta, St. Louis, and Seattle symphony orchestras. In addition to recital appearances at New York's Lincoln Center and the Kennedy Center, he also made his recital debut in Capetown, South Africa, in December of 1995. On February 23-24, 1996, his tour schedule brought him to Nashville, Tennessee, where he performed the Saint-Saens 4th Piano Concerto with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.
Following a debut appearance at the Aspen Festival in the summer of 1996, Pratt traveled to Japan for recital and concert appearances in Osaka and Tokyo in September of 1996. His demanding schedule resumed during the 1996-97 season, with engagements with the New York Philharmonic and National Symphony Orchestras and recitals at Orchestra Hall in Chicago, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, and the Tonhalle in Zurich.
Continued to Release Albums
Pratt released another album in 1996. It was an all-Beethoven album of sonatas. His next album, Live from South Africa, featured works for piano, was released in January of 1997. He also released Transformations in 1999.
Pratt has presented a challenging persona in his visage, his appearance on stage, his manner of addressing his instrument, and in the general aura he projects. He made full use of the tonal nuances and sound spectrum available from his instrument to interpret his varied repertoire. His is a forceful presence; in dreadlocks, he evokes something of the free spirit of one of his favorite composers, Ludwig van Beethoven. He evinces controlled energy, dressing comfortably, often in turtleneck and slacks and seldom in tuxedo, leaving himself free to marshal and direct his considerable technical abilities for interpreting the music. He sat low, on a specially designed bench, for greater control, directing his energies forward towards his instrument. He offers his audiences fresh approaches and is often rewarded with their enthusiastic praise. As for the music critics, for the most part he has had excellent reviews, with many writers commenting on his stage presence, command of pianistic technique, and his ability to convey both breadth and depth in his interpretations.
Pratt's repertoire has been wide. Centered initially in the German classicists--Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach--he also featured the Romantics and French nineteenth century composers. Principally presented in concert and on records as a piano soloist with orchestra as well as in solo recitals, he has conducted both from the piano and before the orchestra in symphonic works. He has also performed in chamber music programs. His concerts have taken him to four continents to audiences in the major cities of the United States, Europe, South Africa, and Asia. Pratt shows great promise of standing in the forefront of our interpreters of the classical repertoire for the piano.
An unavoidable subtext to Pratt's story is his race. "The number of African-American pianists can be counted on one hand," Robinson pointed out. "Until recently, the best-known black soloists have been Leon Bates and Andre Watts, both of whom had established their careers by the time Pratt was born." Pratt's agent, Linda Marder, told one interviewer it was important for Pratt to be "taken seriously as a concert pianist--not qualified as an 'African-American concert pianist.'" On the other hand, Pratt's race carries with it special opportunities and responsibilities. His audiences, for example, are more racially integrated than most that attend classical concerts. And Pratt regularly plays for and talks about music with minority school children. He also started the Pratt Music Foundation that provides instruments, classes and awards scholarships to students. His goal, Barron wrote in New York Times, is "to be a role model for black teenagers, to demystify classical music, and to prove that professional sports are not are only paths to fame." Pratt, meanwhile, sees a day when his race and the superficial differences that set him apart will stop garnering notice--and the attention will focus where it belongs, on his music. "I sort of expect that, in time, all the excess stuff won't be news: the bench, the dreadlocks, the blackness," he told Barron. "Not new news. When I wear t-shirts at a performance, that's what makes me comfortable. A tux, that creates barriers."
Awards
Naumburg International Piano Competition, 1992; awarded Avery Fisher Career Grant, 1994.
Works
Selective Works
- A Long Way from Normal, EMI Classics, 1994.
- Beethoven Piano Sonatas, EMI Classics, 1996.
- Transformations, EMI Classics, 1999.
Further Reading
Periodicals
- Amsterdam News, September 21, 1996.
- American Record Guide 57, September-October 1994.
- American Visions, October/November 1994, p. 48.
- Bermuda Royal Gazette, January 24, 1997.
- Charlotte Observer, October 1, 1995.
- Chicago Sun Times, March 31, 1996.
- Crisis 101, July 1994, p. 49-51.
- Detroit Journal, December 12, 1996.
- Emerge, February 1995, p. 72.
- Nashville Banner, February 26, 1996.
- Nashville Tennessean, February 23, 1996; May 28, 1997.
- Newsweek, November 25, 1996, p. 79C.
- New York Times, February 1995, p. 244-245.
- People, August 17, 1992.
- Stereo Review, September 1994, p. 111-112.
- Awadagin Pratt Website, http://www.awadaginpratt.com.
- IMG Artists Presskit, and 1997 update.
— Ashyia N. Henderson
