Biography
Rita Reichman is a distinguished international concert pianist, chamber musician and pedagogue, whose teachers’ teachers were students of Saint Saëns, Ravel, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and Anton Rubinstein. It is this extraordinary musical heritage that lends her interpretations a stylistic authenticity that marks her out from other pianists of her generation
Australian born, Reichman began studying the piano at the age of three with her mother, a Holocaust survivor, and by the end of the first year she had already given her first performance on Australian ABC television, playing a movement of Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata. From the age of four, the great pianist Jascha Spivakovsky became her teacher and would guide her progress for some years. Over the next two years she played for such luminaries as Gina Bachauer, Hepzibah Menuhin and Arthur Rubinstein. She was quickly recognized as a child prodigy.
From age 9, the American philanthropist W. Clement Stone funded her further studies, initially at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan.
Rita has twice performed for the President of the United States. On the first occasion, at age 10, President Richard Nixon praised the youngster’s “truly inspirational genius.” Three years later she was invited to perform again at the White House, at a State Dinner for the President of Brazil.
A heady first year in America included a debut with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. That year, conductor Antal Dorati arranged an audition with Rudolf Serkin, Director of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, with whom she studied for five years. At 13 she debuted with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Her time at Curtis also brought her under the tutelage of Eleanor Sokoloff, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, Seymour Lipkin and Jorge Bolet, and chamber music with members of the Beaux Arts Trio, the Galimir, the Budapest and Guarneri String Quartets.
During these years she also undertook specialised studies at the Ravel Academy in St Jean de Luz, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and Academia Musicale Chigiana in Siena and with such eminent teachers as Rosina Lhevinne, Rosalyn Tureck, Gaby Casadesus, Phillipe Entremont, Tatiana Nikolaeva, Paul Badura- Skoda and Antonio Janigro. Through all these teachers she was trained in the three great musical traditions, the French, Russian and German schools .
Rita graduated from Curtis with a Diploma in Music at the age of 17, then a Bachelor of Music at 18, winning the Festorazzi Prize for Most Outstanding Pianist. At 21 she graduated from The Julliard School of Music with a Master of Music.
Her passion for chamber music led to her being a founding member of the Chagall Ensemble, with the principal members of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. She has also performed alongside such artists as Oleh Krysa, Alexander Baillie, Geraldo Ribeiro, Marcy Rosen, Semmy Stahlhammer, William Hennessy, Michael Dauth, David Berlin, John Harding and members of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
She has performed and recorded Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Bartok, Tchaikovsky, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Gershwin, Chopin, Grieg, Liszt, Ravel, Saint Saëns and Rachmaninoff concerti with many of the world’s leading conductors and orchestras in France, Italy, America, Poland, Sweden, Austria, Canada, Russia, Israel, South Africa, Belgium, China and Australia. Her solo Chopin recording received great critical acclaim.
In 1985 she was invited to perform for Prince Charles and Princess Diana when they visited Melbourne for Victoria’s 150th anniversary.
Reichman’s expertise is regularly sought as an adjudicator, both in Australia and internationally, in such competitions as the Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition, The ABC Young Performers award and the Hephzibah Menuhin Memorial awards.
Miss Reichman is a Steinway Artist, is married and has two adult children, both with some musical talent.