James Avery

Born in Kansas in 1937, died in Rochester in 2004; the conductor and pianist James Avery studied piano at the University of Kansas with Roy Hamlin Johnson and Robert Baustian and at Indiana University with Walter Robert and Tibor Kozma. He was a prizewinner at the competition for performers of contemporary music (Gaudeamus) in Utrecht. From 1980 to 2004 he held a professorship of piano at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, from 1986 to 1988 a visiting professorship at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York; he was also professor of piano at the University of Rochester. From 1989 to 1992 he was conductor and pianist with the ensemble recherche, and from 1992 in the same capacity with the Ensemble SurPlus, which he co-founded and directed. For Cybele he took part in 2008 as conductor and pianist in Feedback Studio Köln Vol. 8 – Piano Works of Klarenz Barlow.