Bethany Pietroniro, piano
Much in demand as a collaborative pianist, Bethany Pietroniro is joined by a group of talented colleagues for this program created especially for our Downtown Music audience. Bethany has appeared in concert at Alice Tully Hall, and the Morgan Library. She spent the summer of 2022 as a collaborative pianist at Tanglewood.
This concert is made possible, in part, with the generous support of Beverley and Sabin Streeter.
Bethany Pietroniro, piano, is a versatile collaborator who centers her work in a range of repertoire spanning from Baroque masterworks to world premieres, and nurtures close musical partnerships in the process. Highlights of her performing work include an appearance with The Orchestra Now at Alice Tully Hall, New York premieres of vocal works by emerging composers at the Morgan Library, and an Earth Day-themed song recital at the Baltimore War Memorial.
In the summer of 2022, Pietroniro was a Vocal Piano Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, where she will collaborate chiefly with the TMC's Vocal Arts Fellows. Other notable collaborations in vocal chamber music include the world premiere of Julio Friedman’s Fried Cycle, presented in a virtual concert with mezzo- soprano Hailey McAvoy, and a 19th Century German Songbook program presented by Concerts in the Village in Kinderhook, NY. In collaboration with tenor Eric Carey, Pietroniro was a finalist in the 2019 Joy of Singing competition (NYC). Pietroniro has also served as pianist for productions of Britten’s Rape of Lucretia and Albert Herring (hexaCollective Vocal Ensemble) and Missy Mazzoli’s Song from the Uproar (Evolution Contemporary Music Series), and as rehearsal pianist for opera productions at the Bard SummerScape Festival including Le Roi Arthus (Chausson), Das Wunder der Heliane (Korngold) and The Demon (Rubinstein).
Pietroniro is equally devoted to instrumental chamber music. Upcoming concerts include a program of works by Fauré, Schumann, and Beethoven presented with cellist Glenna Curren at Third Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York. Other notable performances include a presentation of Martin Bresnick's Caprichos Enfáticos for percussion quartet and piano at Evolution Contemporary Music Series, duo recitals featuring the works of Beethoven, Hindemith, and Mišek with Ira Gold, bass, and a virtual recital featuring Stephen Paulus’s Seven for the Flowers Near the River with Joelle Arnhold, viola, as part of the 2021 American Viola Society Festival. Pietroniro has also joined The Orchestra Now as an orchestral keyboardist for numerous concerts during their 2017-2021 seasons.
In addition to her work as a collaborative pianist, Pietroniro has begun to delve into historical performance practice and the abundance of repertoire associated with older keyboard instruments. She appeared as a continuo harpsichordist and organist at Emmanuel Music (Boston, MA) during their 2020 Bach Institute and has served as a substitute organist at churches throughout the Hudson Valley.
Pietroniro holds a second Bachelor's degree in mathematics and currently works as a staff member at Art of Problem Solving, an online community devoted to math education and creative, interdisciplinary problem solving. To showcase interdisciplinary creativity, she is currently working on a recording project featuring the works of living composers who, in addition to writing music, work in diverse fields including computer science, linguistics, and climate science.