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"Impressive playing. You are a true romantic who cherishes expressive lines and the singing tone of the piano." Slawmir Dobrzanski, a judge for the 2011 American Prize for Piano Soloists
"Strong performance. Measured ornamentation sounds great, articulate, crisp.
Beautiful playing." Tamara Goldstein, a judge for the 2011 American Prize for Piano
Concerto Soloists
Classical pianist Catharine Quillen Dornin placed third in the
national American Prize competition for piano concerto soloists in
2011 and was a finalist in the piano solo division. She is a
semi-finalist in the 2012 solo piano competition, with winners to be announced in May.
Her Carnegie Hall debut in 1990 drew a packed audience to the Weill
Recital Hall for a masterful performance of works by Mozart, Grieg,
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Amy Beach, Marilyn Ziffrin and John Warthen
Struble. The pianist received a 90-second standing ovation.
As a concerto soloist, she has performed Felix Mendelssohn’s G Minor
Piano Concerto with the Louisville Symphony and Saint-Saens’s
“Carnival of the Animals” with the New Hampshire Philharmonic and duo pianist George Loring.
Dornin has been a concerto soloist twice with the Lakes Region (NH)
Symphony, in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 and in Mozart’s D Minor
Piano Concerto.
The Boston Globe praised her Boston debut in 1986 at First and Second
Church this way: “Catharine Dornin produces a rich, velvety tone and
possesses long, lean fingers capable of racing up and down the
keyboard with power and precision.”
The artist has been a member of the New Hampshire and New England
touring rosters for many years and gives recitals all over northern
New England, wherever the concert hall has a fine piano and a
knowledgeable audience. She has played at such venues as First Night
New Hampshire, Williams College, Oberlin College, Notre Dame College,
Tufts University, Plymouth State College, St. Paul’s School, Exeter
Academy, the Belknap Mill, the New Hampshire Music Festival, Steinert
and Sons in Boston, the MacDowell Colony, the Greater Manchester
Community Music School, Rivier College, Smith College, Concord
Community Music School, Pittsfield Community Music School, the Calvin
Coolidge Estate, the Hochstein Community Music School, the Blithewold
Mansion in Rhode Island, New England College, Harvard University and
the Currier Gallery of Art. She has also appeared on numerous church and library series.
Her repertoire ranges over four centuries of great music from Bach,
Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Schubert to Mendelssohn,
Debussy, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Barber, Grieg, Dvorak, Gershwin and
Rachmaninoff, among others. She takes special pleasure in presenting
the piano works of such fine women composers as Marilyn Ziffrin,
Gwyneth Walker, Kirsten Volgelsang, Amy Beach and Fanny Mendelssohn
Hensel. Dornin also performs some of her own music.
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The artist played Beethoven’s “Appassionata” at the 2004 World Piano
Pedagogy Conference in Las Vegas as one of several tributes to her
former principal teacher at the Oberlin Conservatory, John Perry, the
internationally known pianist. In 1996 she was the featured pianist
in the Public Television documentary, “MacDowell: An American Artists’ Colony.”
Dornin appeared with national poet laureate Donald Hall and others in
a multi-arts show celebrating the Concord Monitor’s release of its
book on state heroes, The New Hampshire Century. She has performed at
two inaugural galas for New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch and done gigs on
New Hampshire Public Radio, New Hampshire Public Television and other
radio and TV programs.
The pianist and soprano Holly Outwin-Tepe also perform widely as a duo
and have a CD together, “Music Sweet as Love.” New Hampshire Public
Radio has said they have “a richness and clarity not found in many
ensembles in the U.S.”
Dornin served as president of the New Hampshire Music Teachers
Association from 1993 to 1995, and earned the group’s Sister Anita
Marchessault Music Teacher/Member of the Year Award in 1996. A
Nationally Certified Teacher of Music, she serves on the piano faculty
at St. Paul’s School and Concord Community Music School. Over four
decades her students have won or placed well in numerous school, state
and New England piano competitions and auditions.
She serves as the pianist and six-week summer organist for St. Paul’s
Episcopal Church in Concord, NH, and for many years accompanied the
Pemigewasset Choral Society in Plymouth, NH, and the “Messiah”
Community Chorus in Concord, NH. In addition to studying with John
Perry at Oberlin, where she earned her bachelors in music, she studied
with the late Jose Echanez of the Eastman School of Music and studies
currently with Dr. Ingrid Gutberg in Boston.
Dornin is married to award-winning poet and journalist Chris Dornin.
They live in Concord, NH, sometimes perform together, and have five
grown children and five grandchildren.
Go to demo music.
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