James Lent

Pianist and Keyboardist James Lent made his Alabama Symphony debut to critical acclaim performing Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 2 on 24 hours' notice to replace Andre Watts. He has performed with the symphony orchestras of Vancouver, Houston, Utah, the Shanghai Philharmonic, and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, among others. As a solo recitalist he has performed at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany, for the National Chopin Foundation in Miami, at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where he premiered a new work written for him by American composer Frederic Rzewski. Mr. Lent has performed with the renowned Paris-based Ensemble Intercontemporain under Pierre Boulez in a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall. His numerous awards include prizes in the New York Concert Artists Guild International Competition, the National Chopin Competition, the Washington International Piano Competition at the Kennedy Center, the Olga Koussevitsky Piano Competition in New York, and the Houston Symphony Ima Hogg National Young Artist Competition.

Mr. Lent has conducted and played for productions of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro and Die Zauberflöte, as well as for dozens of Broadway musicals. He is a native of Houston, attended the University of Houston, and earned a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Performance at Yale University. He was a fellowship recipient at the Aspen Music Festival, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Sarasota Music Festival, and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal. He resides in Los Angeles and teaches on the staff at UCLA and AMDA (American Musical and Dramatic Academy) as collaborative pianist, opera coach, and musical director. He has also served on the summer faculty at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara and the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival.

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