Russell Hirshfield
Biography Russell Hirshfield
Russell Hirshfield
has appeared in recital throughout the United States and in Brazil, China, Belgium, England, Serbia, Costa Rica, and South Africa, programming traditional and contemporary music. His recent programs include concerts at the Royal Academy of Music in Antwerp, the Holywell Music Room in Oxford, and the Royal Flemish Academy in Brussels. In 2017 Phaedra Records released Seeker – The Piano Music of Piet Swerts. The recording has been featured on Belgian Radio Klara and well-received by critics in Holland (Opusklassiek), Belgium (Flanders Art Magazine) and the United States (American Record Guide). In 2020 Navona Records released his program of the early works of Alexander Scriabin.
Hirshfield is Professor of Music at Western Connecticut State University. He has presented masterclasses and conference lectures throughout the United States and abroad. Hirshfield was a member of the Artist Faculty for the 2019 International Piano Festival in Bačka Palanka, Serbia, Guest Artist for the 2015 Piano Master Class Series at New York University, and a member of the piano faculty for the 2013 Oxford University Piano Festival in England.
Mad Dances - American Music for Saxophone and Piano, with saxophonist Dan Goble, was released by Albany Records in 2010. American Record Guide identified Hirshfield as “… a highly skilled and flexible artist who digs into the thorny passages, yet renders the handful of special moments with wonderful touch and sincerity” (ARG, September/October 2011). Hirshfield trained in New Haven and later studied at the Eastman School of Music, Boston University, and the University of Colorado. His teachers include Robert Spillman, James Avery, Anthony di Bonaventura, and Alvin Chow. His adventuresome programming was deemed “challenging even to the most ambitious pianist…” (Boulder Daily Camera).
