LONG PROGRAM BIO:
       Susan Merdinger has been critically acclaimed throughout the United States and Europe. Her performances have been hailed as "spectacular," "exhilarating," "breathtaking," "tender and impassioned." She made her New York Debut in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, as a winner of the Artists International Young Musicians Competition. At their invitation she also performed a solo recital in New York at Merkin Concert Hall as part of their Alumni Winners Series. She has toured Europe under the auspices of the International Concert Administration Foundation, appearing in renown concert halls such as Glasgow's Henry Wood Concert Hall and Holland's Diligentia Hall.
       Among her many honors, Susan Merdinger was the recipient of the Dewar's Young Artists Recognition Award in Music. She has performed extensively as a soloist, chamber musician, and as a member of the prizewinning Merdinger-Greene Two Piano Team. Ms. Merdinger has appeared on radio and television in the United States and Europe, including live performances on The Listening Room with Robert Sherman on WQXR, New York, the BBC in the United Kingdom, Connecticut Public Radio, and a television special program entitled "Bravura". She has also performed at the Yale-Norfolk, Chautauqua, and Fontainebleau Music Festivals. In recent years she has performed at least ten different Piano Concertos with orchestras, collaborating with conductors Glenn Cortese, Ari Rudiakov, Sandra Dackow, Barry Hoffman, and Marvin von Deck. In addition, she won top honors in the Murray Dranoff International Duo Piano, the Performers of Connecticut Young Artists, The Westchester Symphony Orchestra Concerto, and the New Haven Symphony National Young Artist Competitions, and competed in several major international competitions, including the Harveys-Leeds Piano Competition in Great Britain, the Montreal International Music Competition, and the William Kappell International Piano Competition. Most recently, Ms. Merdinger was a Finalist in the International Web Concert Hall Competition, as the highest ranking American pianist. Ms. Merdinger's prodigious talents were recognized at a very young age, with several prizes in youth competitions, culminating with the First Place prize in the New York State Music Teachers Association (state-wide) Piano Competition at the High School Division level.
       Ms. Merdinger recently served as the Music Director for the Ridgewood Unitarian Society in New Jersey, before relocating to Chicago. She directed and regularly performed in the RUS concert series with top performers from New York City. Ms. Merdinger currently is Founder and Music Director of Sheridan Soloisti, a Not-for-Profit organization and concert series based in Highland Park, devoted to featuring the talents of professional soloists and composers, and contributing to worthy humanitarian causes. Throughout her career she has performed with distinguished members of the New York Philharmonic, the New Jersey Symphony, the Orpheus Chamber and the Chicago Symphony Orchestras, including Harry Zaratzian, Jonathan Spitz, Eric Weirich, Charlie Pikler. Currently, Ms. Merdinger is on the Faculty of the New Music School in Chicago, Illinois, and she has also taught at Yale University and Westchester Day School.
       Ms. Merdinger received both a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Music degree from Yale University, and was a merit scholarship recipient in the Doctor of Musical Arts degree program at the Manhattan School of Music. Her teachers have included Constance Keene, Ward Davenny, Seymour Lipkin, Claude Frank, and Ozan Marsh for piano, and Otto Werner Mueller and Robert Kapilow for conducting. She has performed in the Master Classes of Donald Currier, Walter Hautzig, Gaby Casadesus, Eugene List, Byron Janis, and has had private coaching with Karl Ulrich Schnabel and Peter Serkin. Ms. Merdinger earliest study began at the Westchester Conservatory of Music, Intensive Study Pre-College Division, where she was awarded an Artists Diploma in both Piano and Flute.