Amy Zanrosso

Pre-College
  • Chamber Music
  • Piano
Amy Zanrosso Headshot

Contact

Departments

Pre-College

Courses Taught

Piano

Chamber Music

Ensembles

Symphony of the Kootenays (soloist)

Contra Costa Chamber Orchestra (soloist)

The Russian Chamber Orchestra (soloist)

Education

MM, McGill University, Montreal, Canada,

BM, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

Q&A

What is your hometown?

Oakland, California

What is your favorite recording? Why?

There are too many to list! I've never tired of listening to Maria Callas singing "Vissi d'Arte" from Puccini's Tosca –"I lived for art, I lived for love"

What are you passionate about outside of music?

Movies, books, long walks, my family, my friends, hiking, cooking, eating, traveling...the list goes on!

What is a favorite quote that you repeatedly tell students?

Be patient - Franz Liszt

What question do you wish students would ask sooner rather than later?

How old are you?

What was the defining moment when you decided to pursue music as a career?

I was 15 when my first piano teacher died of cancer, that changed everything.

What was a turning point in your career?

Moving to the Bay Area

If you weren't a musician or teacher, what do you think you would be doing now?

A writer or a chef

If you could play only three composers for the rest of your life, who would they be?

Beethoven, Brahms and Shostakovich

What is your unrealized project?

To learn and perform every piano chamber music piece ever written. I'm still working on it....not sure I"ll make it but giving it my best shot.

Please provide links to videos and/or online audio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnDgHsguYv8&t=717s (Beethoven Piano Concert No. 4, chamber version)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKs7GvIOXgg&t=4s (with Evan Kahn, cello)

Biography

Amy Zanrosso’s playing has been hailed as expressive, magnetic and masterful but since no one at the New York Times has said this, she’s not allowed to put it in quotes. Thanks to her attentive Italian immigrant mom, piano lessons started at the age of 6 and by the age of 15, Amy had made the decision to make music her life. As a soloist, she has appeared with the Symphony of the Kootenays, the Russian Chamber Orchestra and the Contra Costa Chamber Orchestra. Her love of chamber music has led her to more fully admire her favorite composers while sharing the experience with countless inspiring musicians and appreciative audiences. Amy is a faculty member and chamber music coach at the Pre-College Academy of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as well as at The Nueva School in Hillsborough, CA. She is constantly fueled by her fantastically inspiring students and enjoys forcing her favorite composers on them as well as telling them what to. Many thanks to Beethoven and Brahms for inspiring her to come this far – she wouldn’t change a thing.

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