London based concert and collaborative pianist Saundra Schiller is active as a recitalist, repetiteur, and educator. Recently having moved from New York City to Paris and now to London, she is performing in venues throughout the country.
In December of 2013, as a collaborative pianist, Ms. Schiller made her Carnegie Hall debut in Weill Hall. She also recently performed new works in concert with the New York Opera Exchange in Time Square’s Old Paramount Building, in the Dramatists Guild Loewe room. Recently Ms. Schiller performed a recital with clarinet, singers, and violin featuring Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, Des Knaben Wunderhorn, and Ravel’s violin sonata. While in Manhattan she performed in a two-piano production of Faust, directed by Thomas Muraco and Carol Castel. In addition to her coaching duties, she arranged and performed a two-piano reduction of the orchestral score and previously did the same for a production of Lucia di Lammermoor with Brazilian director Livia Sabag. Ms. Schiller was regularly called on as a repetiteur for Amore Opera and the CCO.
In the summer of 2011, Ms. Schiller accompanied Martha Guth, 2007 winner of the Wigmore Hall International Song Competition, in a Vancouver recital. She has performed the celesta in Respighi’s Trittico Botticelliano and in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, in collaboration with conductor Daniel Myssyk; her orchestral experience also includes Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, as well as Puccini’s Suor Angelica.
Through her intensive training and collaborations in piano trios and quartets at the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival in Vermont, she gained invaluable knowledge through the expertise and mentoring of chamber musicians such as Kevin Lawrence, Alexander Ezerman, and Paul Orgel. Ms. Schiller has great experience in chamber music from collaborative performances throughout NYC and Virginia. Recently she has performed in recitals in string and woodwind duos, including works by Beethoven, Brahms, and Mozart.
Her background also entails a range of choral singing, including Carmina Burana during the Beijing Olympics with the National Chinese Orchestra conducted by Dr. John Guthmiller. Ms. Schiller performed in Beijingʼs Forbidden City Concert Hall and in Shanghaiʼs Oriental Art Center. During her high-school days, she was very active as a singer and pianist in her school’s nationally competing and touring show-choirs and concert choirs. Regularly called upon as the teacherʼs assistant, she learned how to teach and direct choirs at this time. While in Manhattan, she attained further expertise in conducting choral and orchestral works.
Ms. Schiller received her bachelor’s of music in piano performance from Virginia Commonwealth University with a “Friends of Music” scholarship, where she studied with Dr. Dmitri Shteinberg. As a president’s scholarship recipient at the Manhattan School of Music she received her master’s degree in collaborative piano and vocal coaching in May of 2013, under the tutelage of Professor Thomas Muraco.
After being granted the Sorel scholarship in 2011 to fully cover her tuition and stay, she attended the Vancouver International Song Institute. There she was coached and mentored by renowned singers and pianists including Dr. Arlene Shrut, Rosemarie Landry, Erika Switzer, and Francois Le Roux. During this time she learned how to approach and perform the intimate art form. Alongside singers from around the world, she performed in concerts throughout Vancouver and in the Roy Barnett Concert Hall.
Ms. Schiller has played for the voice master classes of Thomas Hampson (broadcasted live throughout Europe), Martina Arroyo, Diana Soviero, Ubaldo Fabbri, Deen Larsen, Arlene Shrut, Rosemarie Landry, Bruno Laplante, Cameron Stowe and Rena Sharon.
