Cecile Licad

Photo: Sarah Black.

Cecile Licad is considered the foremost Filipina pianist of our time. She has shone brightly in the solo literature, chamber works, and as  soloist in concertos throughout the world. Her teacher the great Rudolf Serkin at the Curtis Institute said, “Cecile Licad has an incredible instinct for all kinds of music and seems equally at home at any style.”

She began her piano studies at the age of three and made her debut as soloist with the Philharmonic orchestra in Manila at age seven. At twelve, she was admitted to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and studied there with three renowned teachers, Rudolf Serkin, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, and Seymour Lipkin. She was a regular visitor at Marlboro where she often played duet literature with Horszowski. In 1981 her international career was launched by receiving the prestigious Leventritt Award gold medal. Since  then, Licad has been among the most traveled pianist in the world and has been soloist with most of the important orchestras such as Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, Philadelphia, and London Symphony, and the New York Philharmonic, as well as the National Symphony and the major orchestras of Germany , Japan, and Russia. Among the conductors she has worked with are Seiji Ozawa, André Previn, Claudio Abbado,Charles Dutoit, Neville Marriner, Eugene Ormandy, and Georg Solti. Her highly acclaimed performance with Solti of the Tchaikovsky Concerto No.1 is a popular hit on you tube.

Her appearances as a chamber artist includes some of the celebrated instrumentalists of our time including the violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, cellist Alban Gerhardt, and pianist Peter Serkin, among many others. She has been soloist with the Guarneri, Takács and other leading string quartets. Her Chopin recording was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque, and her recording of the music of Gottschalk on Naxos has been a continuous best seller. Over the years Licad has developed a deep interest in the neglected piano music of American composers from the revolution era to the present, and her recent four recordings of American piano on the Danacord label music have garnered extraordinary reviews throughout the world. Her next recording with Danacord is the complete piano and orchestra works of Gershwin. She has collaborated with Wynton Marsalis on the film Louis, a film by Dan Pritzker.