Elena Abend

Education

BM, MM The Juilliard School of Music

Biography

Venezuelan born pianist Elena Abend has performed with all the major orchestras of her native country including recording and touring with the Filarmonica Nacional. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Ms. Abend was awarded the William Schuman Prize for outstanding achievement upon graduation. Performances have taken her to London’s Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Academy of Music with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Toulouse Conservatoire, Theatre Luxembourg, University of Glasgow, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C.,the Chicago Cultural Center, Merkin Concert Hall in New York, Atlanta Historical Society, the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee and the Teatro Municipal, Teatro Nacional and Teatro Teresa Carren~o in her native Venezuela. More performances include the Ravinia and Marlboro Music Festivals, live broadcasts on Philadelphia’s WFLN, Wisconsin Public Radio at the Elvehjem Museum in Madison and Dame Myra Hess Concert Series on Chicago’s WFMT.

An avid chamber music collaborator, Ms. Abend has performed with Frankly Music, Present Music, Chamber Music Milwaukee, Milwaukee Musaik, and with the Fine Arts Quartet, Mendelsshon Quartet, Philomusica Quartet and KAIA String Quartet. She has joined the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra in performances as well as invited artist at the “Classical Progressions” series at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts and the Four Seasons concert series in California. More solo performances include the Green Bay Symphony, Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra, the UWM Wind Ensemble and UWM Symphony Orchestra. She has recorded for Avie and Albany Records as well as numerous recording and editing projects for Hal Leonard’s G. Schirmer Instrumental Library and Schirmer Performance Piano Editions. Recently she recorded for the Urtext Online Record Label as soloist with the Snow Pond Chamber Players. Ms. Abend and husband clarinetist Orlando Pimentel perform as the Elisio Duo promoting Latin American music.

Ms. Abend is chair of piano studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and faculty at the Collaborative Piano Institute and the New England Music Camp Chamber Music Intensive program.

Find Elena Abend on YouTube