Sara Daneshpour

Sara Daneshpour’s appointment as Assistant Professor of Piano began on Aug. 15, 2023.

Hailed by the Washington Post for creating "transfixing poetry" during her performances, Daneshpour has established herself as one of the most refined artists of her generation, leaving audiences and critics alike spellbound with what the New York Concert Review describes as her "blazing technique, power, expressivity, imagination and stage presence."

Highlights of Daneshpour's current and recent concert seasons include performances with the Mariinsky Orchestra, the Israel Camerata and Israel Philharmonic, along with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and Britt Festival Orchestra.

Daneshpour has appeared in solo recitals at the Southbank Centre in London, the Musée d'Orsay, Salle Cortot, Mazzoleni Concert Hall in Toronto, the Copenhagen Summer Festival, the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, San Francisco Chamber Music, Mariinsky International Piano Festival in St. Petersburg and the International Keyboard Festival in New York.

In orchestra concerts and solo recitals, Daneshpour has stunned audiences with an unusually wide repertoire ranging from Bach to Boulez, a dazzling technique, and an exceptional level of artistic depth and sincerity. Her performances have been described as "a powerhouse account, producing enough tone for two pianists in the process" by the Baltimore Sun, while the New York Concert Review has proclaimed that Daneshpour's playing lavishes "colour on oft-neglected lines, illuminating subtle beauties." Her current solo program of Etudes by Chopin and Ligeti combines two of the most intriguing and most demanding works ever written for the piano.

Daneshpour has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Germany, Russia, Finland, France, Sweden, Spain, Israel and Japan. She has been heard at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, Carnegie Hall in New York and at the Great Hall of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow.

Daneshpour is the third prize winner of the 2017 Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition, along with the 2014 prize winner at the Seoul International Music Competition in Seoul, Korea, and 2013 Laureate of the ProLiance Energy Classical Fellowship Awards of the American Pianists Association. She is the first prize winner of the XII Concours International de Musique du Maroc, second prize winner of the 2007 William Kapell International Piano Competition, and first prize and Gold Medal winner of the 2007 International Russian Music Piano Competition.

Born in Washington, DC, into an Iranian-American family, Daneshpour has studied under the direction of Leon Fleisher at the Curtis Institute of Music, with Yoheved Kaplinsky and Oleg Volkov at the Juilliard School, and with Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music.