Timothy Ehlen
Associate Professor of Piano
B.M. and M.M., University of Southern California; D.M.A., Cleveland Institute of Music. Student of John Perry and Paul Schenly.
Timothy Ehlen has performed extensively in the United States and Europe as a soloist and chamber player. After his Alice Tully Hall debut in 1988, The New York Times raved that his “playing filled with elegant personality... recalled bygone artists like Robert Casadesus and, especially Walter Gieseking in their mastery of both 18th century and impressionist music...immaculate technique.” New York Concert Review hailed Timothy Ehlen’s 1997 recital in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall as “…an absolutely remarkable tour-de-force.” Recitals in France, Germany, and Korea have elicited a similarly enthusiastic response: “Sensitive and tender creativity [in Ravel]” [Fürther Nachrichten] and “behind the fire hid a heartfelt emotion, held together by tender affection [in Beethoven]” [L’Alsace].
Professor Ehlen's recitals include performances in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall on the Pro Piano Recital Series, Cleveland Orchestra Schubert Bi-Centennial Series in Cleveland, festival Recontres Internationales de Piano en Alsace, International Franz Liszt Festival in France; the series “Sundays at 6” (broadcast live on KMZT in Los Angeles from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art), Old First Concerts in San Francisco, Bösendorfer Hall in Vienna, Kum Ho Art Hall in Seoul, Korea, various universities, including the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, Indiana University in Bloomington, and Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, and a concerto performance at the 2004 American Liszt Society Conference in Champaign.
Ehlen has been heard frequently on National Public Radio, in addition to WFUZ in New York City, WXXI in Rochester, WFMT in Chicago, WGUC in Cincinnati, WKSU in Akron, Ohio, and regularly on KUSC and KKGO in Los Angeles. Timothy Ehlen’s solo CD containing the Schumann Fantasie and other works was recently released on the Azica label. Previous recordings have appeared on the Crystal, Omnibus, and Felia Mundi labels. Active as a competition adjudicator, he served on the international jury of the 1998 and 1999 World Piano Competition in Cincinnati and as a screening judge for the 2003 Cleveland International Competition. He has premiered several new works for piano, including the New York premieres of the BMI award-winning composition, Homage to Ralph Shapey (1985) by Bryan Pezzone, and a major work for piano duo, Die Versuchungen des Heiligen Antonius, by the German composer Wolfgang-Andreas Schultz. He has taught and performed at the summer festivals Rencontres Musicales en Lorraine in Nancy, France, and the Vienna International Piano Academy in Austria. Timothy Ehlen is a Steinway Artist.