Pianist Nada

A United States citizen of Lebanese/Hungarian descent, with a French education, Pianist Nada is a native of Beirut, Lebanon. Her piano training was hampered by the unrelenting civil war and terrorism which also cost her mother’s life in a mortar explosion in her own home in Beirut. Her family escaped to the mountains where Nada was mainly self-taught with a few books of music – the Bach Inventions and the Chopin Waltzes and Polonaises. After only seven years of playing the piano, she was admitted to the Paris Conservatory, France, where she became the first woman from the Middle East to take First Prize.

Since then, she has created a career with tremendous depth and breadth. Her insightful readings and unique approach to the major music repertoire frequently reminds audiences and critics of the legendary pianists Gina Bachauer and Clara Haskil. And more recently, she has been described as:

“A music personality of this century, such as a Glenn Gould or Samson François.”

About her work as a pioneer, her mentor, late distinguished IU professor Gyorgy Sebok, wrote:

“A hero of the Arts.”

She traveled with a piano on a truck, introducing classical music to rural communities, hospital patients and prison populations. She has worked with several local organizations, including her own non-profit, Sundays Love Music, which is committed to broadening the audience of classical music while bringing an excitement for the classical composers and how they have influenced us in so many ways.

She also had years of radio experience starting with WUOL and created her own show, The Classical Hour, on WCHQ.

She teaches privately and at Indiana University Southeast in the Arts Institute department. She is the founder of a new Brahms Festival, which presented its inaugural concert at the Ogle Center at IUS, sponsored by the Ceasar Foundation, Sundays Love Music, in partnership with other local organizations.

She has been invited by several institutions such as Bellarmine College, Wesleyan University, Campbellsville University, Basel Conservatory (Switzerland) among others, to perform and give lectures/masterclasses.

She has recently performed with Tahoe Orchestra, Lakeside Symphony, Italian Institute of Netherlands (Amsterdam), and is scheduled with the Liszt Circle of Netherlands as well as orchestras around the world. She will be recording Bach with the Manhattan Orchestra this year for an album to be released on Cicerone Records.

She has recorded all of Brahms’ solo piano works, including her own arrangements of the Choral Preludes for Organ, Op. 122, and a first-time recording of Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 and No. 2 in a reduction for piano solo, digitally released on 4Tay Records. All recordings can be found on her website:
🔗 https://pianistnada.com/shop/
and on Amazon as well as other digital platforms.

“Nada’s profound understanding of Brahms and her sensitivity to his work… she invited the listener to engage in a musical dialogue with Brahms.”
— Brahms Museum Studies, Hamburg, Germany, 2020

“This three-disc collection is the one that sets her seal on her place in the Pantheon of Great Brahms interpreters.”
— Fanfare Magazine, September 2021

On Grieg’s Piano Concerto:

“It was like hearing it for the first time… She played with style, passion, and thunder without being excessive or sentimental…”
— Louisville, Freelance writing

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