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TO SUGGEST RECORDINGS THAT I FIND SUPERIOR, THESE ARE PAGES ON WHICH... 
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Diane Hidy made her Carnegie Hall debut in 1991 after completing her studies with John Perry and Leon Fleisher. She attended Juilliard School of Music and holds music degrees from the University of Southern California and Peabody Conservatory of Music. Diane has received first prize awards from the Joanna Hodges Piano Competition and the MTNA Collegiate Artist Competition. In 1987 she was the first woman to become a Fellow of the American Pianists Association. Diane maintains an active teaching schedule in her home studio in San Francisco, California."She was superb before. She was simply exquisite when she returned. Pianist Diane Hidy was once again guest artist with the Saginaw Symphony Saturday night, and just as was true two years ago, she gave the most astounding performance of any soloist in recent memory. "Ms. Hidy may be one of the best kept secrets in classical music today, though one supposes this may change after her Carnegie Hall debut next Sunday. Her credentials are impeccable, from her distinguished list of teachers and awards, to her many engagements as concert artist and the superb reviews that have accompanied them. "This area was first introduced to her in February of 1989, when she performed Beethoven's Third Concerto with Najar and the orchestra. The playing then was clear, lyrical, and unselfconscious. With a sharply defined focus, she overpowered with understatement. "Ms. Hidy returned this season to perform Grieg's A minor Piano Concerto, a work in which the performer's virtuosity often hides the innate sensitivity and lyricism. Her finely-crafted approach worked, instead, to infuse bravura into soul-deep musicianship. The technical demands of the piece were never her master, but neither did she overpower the work or its architecture. "In short, there was virtually nothing in her performance that was not absolutely spot-on, from her silky handling of the argeggic writing to her rhapsodic and insightful approach to the first movement cadenza. The lovely second movement, in particular, was memorable. She exquisitely pulled her entrances from seemingly nowhere, infusing it with intense and breath-taking beauty." |
Academy Records was started in 1993 as a mail order company offering Piano Literature Recordings to piano teachers and students throughout the world. Their recordings are also used as reference material in many University and College music departments as well as being included in educational libraries across the country. Their recordings have become an essential tool in studios worldwide for enhanced piano teaching and playing. However, these recordings are not for the teacher and student alone. They offer hours of listening pleasure for anyone who enjoys the beauty of piano music. Their recordings are available with selections by favorite composer such as Mozart or Chopin on each disc as well as compilation recordings with works by various composers on one disc."It doesn't matter whether you are a piano teacher, piano student, or used to be either, this series of recordings is a delight and a welcome addition to the catalog. "Academy Records founder Keith Snell's vision is to make recordings of the standard student piano literature to give students a referent for how the works should sound. These sterling compact discs do that, as well as provide us former students a wonderful memory of the pieces we used to play. "Without Diane Hidy, an extraordinary concert pianist and renowned pedagogue, this project. could easily have fallen prey to cute, overly-sentimental, pretentious, or stuffy performances which students would have spotted and snubbed right away, Hidy's readings are the sort that could only have come from a consummate artist, able at once to understand and interpret the simplicity of these works, while infusing them with dignity and elegance. "Students and their teachers will have much to talk about as they listen to Hidy's readings which, while they stay strictly confined to the printed scores, nevertheless convey volumes about individual interpretations and stylistic technique. For example, anything marked dolce (the Adagio from Clementi's third sonatina comes to mind), Hidy elevates to poetic heights while preserving the simplicity inherent in the writing." | ||
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