Patricia Michaelian, piano

Patricia Michaelian has been a member of the piano faculty at the University of Washington since 1984. A native of San Francisco, she began piano studies at the age of three. Her early training at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music under the guidance of Adolf Baller led to acceptance at the famed Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia when she was fifteen. Her teachers there included Eleanor Sokoloff, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, and Rudolf Serkin.

Michaelian has toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Great Britain, Australia, and Asia. She has appeared in recital in such major capitals as New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, Lisbon, Manila, Bangkok, and Hong Kong. Michaelian has been heard as soloist with the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Pops, San Diego Symphony, New Orleans Philharmonic, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, National Orchestra of the Philippines, and the Sydney Symphony, among others.

She was seen on nationwide television at the age of fifteen, having been chosen by Leonard Bernstein to appear as soloist with the New York Philharmonic on his celebrated "Young Peoples’ Concerts". Other renowned conductors with whom she has worked include Josef Krips, Arthur Fiedler, Edo de Waart, Sergiu Comissiona, Milton Katims, and Gerard Schwarz. Northwest audiences have heard her in many performances with the Northwest Chamber Orchestra, Bellevue Philharmonic, and the Seattle Symphony, with whom she has recorded the Bloch “Concerto Grosso for Strings and Piano.”

In 1979, Michaelian’s New York recital at Alice Tully Hall on one week’s notice was one of the season’s most highly acclaimed debuts. Concertgoers were captivated by her pianistic power and poetry, and the New York Times hailed her as "a major artist". Following this debut, she appeared in virtually all of New York’s concert halls in both solo recital and chamber concerts.

As a collaborative pianist, Michaelian has partnered with some of today’s leading artists. In 1994 she performed in a chamber concert at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. in a program dedicated to retiring Justice Harry Blackmun, premiering a work by composer Stephen Paulus. She has also appeared in concert with the Cleveland Quartet, and has toured with members of New York’s Orpheus Ensemble. Locally, she has been heard at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, as well as the Seattle International Festival.

Michaelian serves frequently as an adjudicator in the United States and abroad.

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