Rebecca Mayer

Piano

Rebecca Mayer recently graduated with academic honor from the Cleveland Institute of Music, receiving her Bachelor of Music and her Master of Music in piano performance. The Cleveland Institute of Music faculty awarded her the Sadie Zellen Prize and the William Kurzman Prize in piano. Her previous teachers include Kathryn Brown at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Logan Skelton of the University of Michigan, and Deborah Moriarty at Michigan State University. She has soloed with the Ann Arbor and Rochester Symphonies of Michigan in both piano and in violin. As a soloist, Rebecca was named honorable mention in the Henry Joniec National Piano Competition, a finalist in the International Eastman School of Music Piano Competition, the Ima Hogg National Instrumental Competition, and the National Mozart Concerto Piano Competition.

Rebecca has performed nationally and internationally in master classes and solo concerts, including solo performances in Prague and Italy. In the summer of July 2003, Rebecca made her solo debut at the Carmel Bach Festival in Monterrey, California. Shortly after her debut, she performed Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Sonata live on the television show Applause. In October of 2009, Rebecca was invited by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra to perform Dvorak’s “Dumky” Piano Trio with Fedor Amosov and Oleg Larshin at the Max M. Fisher Music Center. In addition to her piano study, Rebecca has an extensive history as a violinist. As a violinist, she won numerous young artist competitions including the Birmingham Musicale, Rochester Young Artist Competition, Jean Hoffman Competition, and Zerounian.

In the spring of 2000, Rebecca and her two sisters formed a piano trio. As a trio, they were top prize winners in the senior division of the National Fischoff Chamber Competition, prize winners in the International Coleman Chamber Music Competition in California, and placed second in the National Fischoff Junior Chamber Competition while in high school. Additionally, the Cleveland Institute of Music awarded the trio the Dr. Bennett Levine Memorial Award in Chamber Music. As an established trio, the Harding Trio performed in master classes with the Beaux-Arts Trio, Juilliard Quartet, Itzhak Perlman, Paul Katz, John Perry, Norman Fisher, Sergei Babayan, Donald and Vivian Weilerstein, the New Arts Trio, Emerson Quartet, Cavani Quartet, Cleveland Quartet, and the Arianna String Quartet. The Harding Trio has also been featured numerous times on WCLV Classical FM 104.9 in Cleveland, Ohio.

Currently, Rebecca Mayer lives in Hillsdale, Michigan, with her husband and three children. She has taught on the faculty of Hillsdale College and also founded the “Listen and Learn” concert series.  Currently, Rebecca frequently performs with musicians from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at various concert series in throughout Michigan and beyond.