Since his victory at the 1997 Naumburg International Piano Competition in New York City, Anthony Molinaro’s stunning performances and unique versatility have captivated audiences and critics alike. Acclaimed for his “edge-of-the-seat brilliance” and “musically imaginative mind,” Mr. Molinaro’s performances have taken him to major music centers throughout the country including Boston, Cleveland, Dallas, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, New York’s Alice Tully Hall, and Chicago’s Symphony Center. He has been featured on Ravinia’s Rising Stars Series, The Young Artist Series at the Kravis Center, The Irving S. Gilmore Festival, The Charles Vanda Master Series in Las Vegas, and at The Santa Fe Jazz Festival, The Toronto Jazz Festival, The Grand Teton Music Festival, and Eastern Music Festival among many others. He has appeared as guest soloist with over fifty symphony orchestras including the Arkansas, Boise, Lake Forest, Louisville, Napa Valley, Naples, Richmond, and Syracuse Symphony Orchestras. He has also performed with the Canton, Cape Cod, Eugene, Flint, Savannah and Catskill Symphonies, as well as with the Chicago Sinfonietta, Chicago Jazz Orchestra, and Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra. Outside of the U.S., Mr. Molinaro has recently concertized in France, Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Canada; and headlined at leading clubs for improvised music including Chicago’s Green Mill, Toronto’s The Rex Hotel and Jazz Bar, Vienna’s Porgy and Bess, Amsterdam’s Bimhuis, Munich’s Unterfahrt, and Zurich’s Moods to name a few.

In addition to his traditional concert repertoire, Mr. Molinaro is a gifted composer, arranger and improviser, giving him a musical dimension uncommon to artists of his generation. He often plays his own cadenzas in Mozart and Beethoven concerti, and his “free-wheeling” and “unconventional” rendition of Rhapsody in Blue features improvised cadenzas. In November 2005, he premiered his Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Catskill Symphony, and later that year debuted his big band arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue with The Chicago Jazz Orchestra.

Mr. Molinaro records exclusively for Nineteen-Eight Records, a label he founded in 2001 to support creative music of all genres. His debut CD, The Bach Sessions, features the Goldberg Variations and the F Minor and A Major Concertos with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Orchestra conducted by Andrew Litton. His wildly popular follow-up recording, New Blue, is a Gershwin album featuring his own solo version of Rhapsody in Blue, as well as arrangements and improvisations on the Gershwin classics “Summertime,” “Someone To Watch Over Me,” “Embraceable You,” and “I Got Rhythm.” His collaboration with the two-time Grammy Award-winning harmonica virtuoso Howard Levy was highlighted by a live recording from the famed Green Mill Jazz Club in Chicago; and his 2010 recording, Canto Per Mio Padre, features music of Schubert / Liszt, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, and Debussy. His highly anticipated solo piano album exploring music of The Beatles, Here, There and Everywhere, was released in January 2014 to critical claim. In a Chicago Tribune feature story, critic Howard Reich wrote “an exceptional new solo album… He transforms these works creating a distinctive world of sound for each one… In effect, Molinaro has brought to these famous songs a harmonic sophistication, rhythmic complexity and textural intricacy that far surpasses the originals.”

Mr. Molinaro has performed on PBS, WTTW’s Chicago Tonight, and on the popular Italian program Il Senso della Vita. He is also a frequent guest on Chicago’s WFMT, and has been featured in numerous publications including the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Downbeat magazine, and the recently released book, The New Face of Jazz (2010). Mr. Molinaro lives in his native Chicago where he is an Associate Professor and the Director of Music at Loyola University. In 2014, he was awarded The Edwin T. and Vivijeanne F. Sujack Award for Teaching Excellence, “the very highest honor that the Loyola University College of Arts and Sciences bestows for the very best in teaching and research.” In the twenty-year history of the award, he is the first ever winner from the Department of Fine and Performing Arts. Mr. Molinaro studied at the University of North Texas and Northwestern University, and has won several piano awards in addition to the Naumburg Prize, most notably the William C. Byrd International Piano Competition and the 1995 National Piano Fellowship from the American Pianists Association. When not concertizing, he devotes considerable time to music education beyond Loyola University, and for three summers coordinated a music program for physically challenged children in South Hampton, New York. Away from music, Mr. Molinaro is a health and fitness enthusiast and an avid runner and triathlete.

“An exceptionally persuasive solo performance… It was not difficult to discern the perpetual- motion ostinatos of Prokofiev’s Seventh Piano Sonata in Molinaro’s dynamic, radical transformation of ‘Back Home in Indiana,’ nor the driving energy of Prokofiev’s Toccata in Molinaro’s similarly propulsive ‘19/8.’ But in every solo piece Molinaro played, from his Keith Jarrett-influenced rewriting of ‘Summertime’ to his ferociously syncopated stride-piano sendup ‘Sketchy’ (composed with Howard Levy), Molinaro acquitted himself as an original, often iconoclastic thinker equipped with a leonine technique.” – Chicago Tribune
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“Molinaro’s playing exploded one’s long held notion of the relationship between competitions and mediocrity… brilliant music making…a highly charged performance that will not soon be forgotten or surpassed.” – Newark Star-Ledger
                      
“A lovely singing line in the right hand, a strong left hand that can sing just as beautifully, an even control of rapid configuration, ease and clarity in the distinction of contrapuntal voices, immediate concentration. He is already a fine melodist, and the importance of the slow sections, done with persuasive rubato, seemed to mount continuously. When the ‘Aria’ (Goldberg Variations) came back at the end, it had its history not just behind but within it, for what had been merely beguiling at the start of the work was now being more deeply explored.” – New York Times

“About the most lively interpretation (Rhapsody in Blue) one could imagine. He put the jazz and blues back into a piece inspired by the same.” – Chicago Sun-Times

“A freshness that I have found in no other performance (Goldberg Variations)… you have to physically respond to its infectious energy. Molinaro’s performances of the two Bach Concertos are as breathtaking as Gould’s.” – Listener magazine

“Anthony Molinaro dazzled the crowd in the Gershwin Concerto (Syracuse Symphony) with crisp fingerwork and a genuine flair for the Gershwin style. More than just glitz, however, Molinaro brought a sensuous touch to the work. His cadenza to the second movement was dreamy and mesmerizing, placing a spin on this work that is often lacking by more aggressive soloists. The tremendous standing ovation at the conclusion of the work was well-earned.” – The Syracuse Post Standard

“He provided an Elysian performance (Beethoven Concerto #4)… strong, spacious and thoughtful, with welcome touches of poetry and finesse. From start to finish, this was a reading that reflected up-to-the-minute searching by a deeply thoughtful musician. Spontaneity took a deep breath in every bar and the delicacy of fingerwork and shading of tone was remarkable. I must say this young American pianist combines magnetism with imagination. His crisp, clean articulation and preference for transparent textures reminded this listener of renowned pianist and Beethoven interpreter Wilhelm Kempff.” – The Napa Valley Register

“Anthony Molinaro’s eighty-eight keys have been slammed, twisted, and transformed from the traditional concert pianist’s repertoire to that of modern jazz. Stereotypes need not apply. It was no surprise when Anthony, who was the winner of the 1997 Naumburg International Piano Competition, turned to the church of hard-core jazz. For years he had been improvising cadenzas on major orchestral works and symphonic stages. Ingenious compositions and arrangements have been featured with esteemed groups such as the Chicago Jazz Orchestra, and his record label, Nineteen-Eight, is producing some of the hottest jazz talents in our country. Anthony’s highly accomplished and auspicious beginning has pushed him into the wealth of young artists that bring light to our cultural future.” – The New Face of Jazz

“Anthony Molinaro dazzled the crowd in the Gershwin Concerto (Syracuse Symphony) with crisp fingerwork and a genuine flair for the Gershwin style. More than just glitz, however, Molinaro brought a sensuous touch to the work. His cadenza to the second movement was dreamy and mesmerizing, placing a spin on this work that is often lacking by more aggressive soloists. The tremendous standing ovation at the conclusion of the work was well-earned.” – The Syracuse Post Standard

“He provided an Elysian performance (Beethoven Concerto #4)… strong, spacious and thoughtful, with welcome touches of poetry and finesse. From start to finish, this was a reading that reflected up-to-the-minute searching by a deeply thoughtful musician. Spontaneity took a deep breath in every bar and the delicacy of fingerwork and shading of tone was remarkable. I must say this young American pianist combines magnetism with imagination. His crisp, clean articulation and preference for transparent textures reminded this listener of renowned pianist and Beethoven interpreter Wilhelm Kempff.” – The Napa Valley Register

“Anthony Molinaro performed Bach’s Piano Concerto in D Minor with such aristocratic grace that he reached the heart of this glorious baroque work without distraction or detour. With the collaboration of the orchestra (Naples Philharmonic), Molinaro conveyed the grandeur, the delicate tracery and poetic momentum of Bach’s masterpiece while also underlining its timelessness.” – Naples Tribune

“Played with laudable verve and intelligence by Anthony Molinaro, his insightful readings of two Bach keyboard concertos convinced from the very first notes. Molinaro made an important statement of who he is as a musician and carried the music forward in accounts that were finely articulated and artfully embellished.” – Louisville Courier-Journal

“Edge-of-the-seat brilliance…absolutely first rate performances.” – Salt Lake City Deseret News

“Judging by this performance (Rachmaninoff Concerto #3), his name will soon be on every music lover’s lips. Not only did he display the technical skills necessary to bring off this most difficult of Rachmaninoff’s four concertos, he also gave a singularly convincing interpretation that artists twice his age would be lucky to achieve.” – The Flint Journal

“Molinaro’s free-wheeling and un-conventional rendition of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue will not soon be forgotten…with his fresh manner, razor sharp precision, and unanticipated improvisations so true to the spirit, if not the letter, of Gershwin.” – The Southampton Press

“One of the hottest young pianists in the world… A gorgeous example of a sublimely talented and fiercely confident young artist intent on making a musical statement.” – The Eugene Register Guard

“The best Gershwin piano CD I’ve ever heard!” – Steve Ramm’s In The Groove

“A daring rewrite. New Blue alone is evidence of his improvisational gifts.” – The Indianapolis Star