Rebecca Penneys is a recitalist, chamber musician, orchestral soloist, educator, and adjudicator. For over six decades she has been hailed as a pianist of prodigious talent, has concertized throughout all the continents north of Antarctica, and represented the USA in Information Service State Department Cultural Tours over a ten-year period. She made her recital debut at age 9 and performed as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra at 11. At 17 she received the unprecedented Special Critics’ Prize at the VII International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, an award created in her honor. Other prizes include Nambung Chamber Music Award, on two separate occasions, Most Outstanding Musician Prize in Vianna Da Motta Competition, and top prize in Paloma O’Shea Competition. Critics worldwide have acclaimed her live performance and recordings. She made her NY Debut at Alice Tully Hall in 1972.

An International Steinway Artist, she has received accolades for her ability to teach Motion and Emotion, an approach to keyboard technique that helps pianists achieve individual performance goals without physical strain or injury. In 2021 she was inducted into the Steinway Teachers Hall of Fame. Having completed 43 years of full-time collegiate teaching, she retired in 2017 and is now Courtesy-Steinway-Artist-in-Residence at University of South Florida and Professor Emerita of Piano at Eastman School of Music. She was Chair of the Chautauqua Institution Piano Program for 34 years and started its chamber music program.

Launched in 2013, the Rebecca Penneys Piano Festival (RPPF), tuition-free for collegiate pianists, is held every summer at USF in July and is supported by Rebecca Penneys Friends of Piano, non-profit 501c3. Forty students have a semester of lessons with twenty-three eminent artist faculty in just three-week’s time.

Rebecca’s many CD’s, DVD’s, HD performance/teaching videos, and Chicken Soup for Pianists are available on-line and on all streaming platforms. Current and former students include prizewinners in international competitions and hold teaching posts worldwide. Rebecca’s teachers include Aube Tzerko, Leonard Stein, Rosina Lhevinne, Artur Rubinstein, Menahem Pressler, György Sebök, Janos Starker, and Josef Gingold. Learn more at RebeccaPenneys.com, RPPF, and YouTube “Her playing is simply revelatory” – American Record Guide