(828) 526-0173 | [email protected] | Copyright 2024 – All Rights Reserved.
Recognizing Ransom
Written By: Nancy Gould Aaron - Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival | Issue: 2017/01 - Winter
For William Ransom, Anna and Hays Mershon Artistic Director of the Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival, there’s really no such thing as down time.
Pianist, master teacher, artistic director, editor, and judge for international competitions, Ransom regularly appears in recital, as soloist with orchestras, and as a chamber musician around the world. His performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio and Television in the United States, Japan, Korea, Argentina, and Poland. His recordings of “Enoch Arden” by Richard Strauss, “The Music of Alfredo Barili,” and “The Chamber Music of Johannes Brahms” were released on the ACA label. Ransom can also be heard on “Heartkeys,” from Rising Star Records. His new recording, “Listening to Memories” was released this year.
He was the featured pianist performing music by Dwight Andrews used in August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway hit, “The Piano Lesson,” as well as the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie based on the same play.
Ransom is currently the Mary L. Emerson Professor of Piano and Director of Piano Studies at Emory University in Atlanta. He is founder and Artistic Director of the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta and has collaborated with such artists as cellists Yo-Yo Ma and
Steven Isserlis.
In September, Dr Ransom was named artistic director designate of the Juneau Jazz & Classics Festival in Alaska, which occurs in May. He will back in Highlands and Cashiers in June for HCCMF’s 36th season of bringing beautiful music to the mountains.
