Called ‘a pianist’s pianist’ by The New Yorker, Cecile Licad’s artistry is a blend of daring musical instinct and superb training. Her natural talent was honed at the Curtis Institute of Music by three of the greatest performer/ pedagogues of our time: Rudolf Serkin, Seymour Lipkin and Mieczyslaw Horszowski. Licad’s large repertoire as an orchestral soloist spans the Classical works of Mozart and Beethoven, the Romantic literature of Brahms, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Schumann and Rachmaninov, and twentieth-century compositions by Debussy, Ravel, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Bartók.

Cecile Licad began her piano studies at the age of three with her mother, Rosario Licad, in her native Philippines, and later studied with the highly regarded Rosario Picazo. At the age of seven, she made her debut as soloist with the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Philippines. As one of the youngest musicians to receive the prestigious Leventritt Gold Medal, Ms Licad won immediate international recognition, and her career was launched.

Licad has appeared with major orchestras throughout North America and Europe, as well as in Asia. She has collaborated with Claudio Abbado, Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Kurt Masur, Sir Neville Marriner, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, André Previn, Michael Tilson-Thomas, David Zinman and Pinchas Zukerman, as well as the late Sir Georg Solti, Eugene Ormandy and Mstislav Rostropovich. She has performed in recital with Murray Perahia, Peter Serkin and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, with whom she has appeared at Lincoln Center, Orchestra Hall in Chicago, and the Kennedy Center, respectively. She performs regularly with cellist Alban Gerhardt throughout Europe and the United States. Her summer festival appearances have included Caramoor, Tanglewood, the International Music Festival of Seattle, Mostly Mozart Festival (in both New York and Tokyo) and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.

Licad has recorded Ravel for the Music Masters label (Le tombeau de Couperin, Gaspard de la nuit and the Sonatine), and an all-Gottschalk disc for Naxos. For Sony Classical she has recorded Schumann’s Carnaval, Papillons and Toccata, Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 2 and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (Chicago Symphony and Claudio Abbado), and Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 2 and Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No 2 (London Philharmonic and André Previn), the last of which was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque Frédéric Chopin.