Christopher Taylor
Christopher Taylor was appointed Assistant Professor of Piano at UW-Madison in the Fall of 2001. In 1990 he was one of the first four recipients of the Gilmore Young Artists Award and he took First Prize in the William Kapell International Piano Competition, held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. In 1993, he won the Bronze Medal in the 9th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the first American to reach the finals since 1981. In 1996, he joined a distinguished group of young musicians when he was honored with the Avery Fisher Career Grant. Since his first solo recital at ten, he has performed in many cities, including New York (at both Carnegie and Alice Tully Halls), Boston, Washington, Chicago (where he has performed at the Ravinia Festival), Denver, and Los Angeles, as well as in Europe, Asia and the Caribbean. He made his debuts with the New York Philharmonic and the Detroit Symphony in the 1998-1999 season, and has appeared as well with the Saint Louis Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the National Symphony, the Boston Pops, the Seoul Philharmonic, and numerous other orchestras. Mr Taylor began his piano studies in his native Boulder, Colorado under Julie Bees, and has since studied with Francisco Aybar, Russell Sherman, and Maria Curcio Diamand. At the same time as he was advancing as a pianist, he was pursuing his undergraduate degree in mathematics at Harvard University, which he received in 1992, summa cum laude. In addition to performing, Mr Taylor has won several awards for his own compositions.