Dr. Sara Davis Buechner, B.Mus., M.Mus. (Juilliard), D.M.A. (Manhattan)
Associate Professor, Piano

Office: 604.822.3527, Room 309
Email: sara.buechner(at)ubc.ca
Website: http://saradavisbuechner.com/

Sara Davis Buechner has been praised on four continents as a musician of “intelligence, integrity and all-encompassing technical prowess” (New York Times), “fascinating and astounding virtuosity” (Philippine Star), and “thoughtful artistry in the full service of music” (Washington Post). In her twenties she was the winner of a bouquet of prizes at the world’s great piano competitions -- Reine Elisabeth of Belgium, Leeds, Salzburg, Sydney and Vienna; the Gold Medal of the 1984 Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, and as a Bronze Medal at the 1986 Tschaikowsky International Piano Competition in Moscow. Ms. Buechner enjoys a vibrant international performance and recording career.
 
With an active repertoire of over 100 piano concertos, she appears regularly as soloist with many of the world’s prominent orchestras: New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Saint Louis, San Francisco, Montréal, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Victoria, and numerous others. Ms. Buechner’s performs in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center and the Hollywood Bowl; and she enjoys wide success throughout Asia where she tours annually.
 
The New York Times greeted Ms. Buechner’s Koch International CD of piano music by Rudolf Friml as a “revelation,” and devoted the front page of its Sunday Arts & Leisure section to her 1997 world première recording of the Bach-Busoni “Goldberg” Variations. Her George Gershwin album was selected as a “Record of the Month” by Stereophile magazine, and her recording of Hollywood piano concertos by Bernard Herrmann and Franz Waxman won Germany’s Deutsches Schauplatten Preis for best soundtrack.
 
Ms. Buechner continues to record prolifically, including new music and commissions from prominent composers of our time such as Larry Bell, Dorothy Chang, Dick Hyman, Henry Martin, Jared Miller and Yukiko Nishimura. She is one of the few concert pianists to actively perform piano scores to silent movies such as Ben-Hur and Battleship Potemkin. Ms. Buechner has toured extensively with the Mark Morris Dance Group, and collaborates often with Vancouver dance-mime artist Yayoi Hirano.
 
Profiles of Ms. Buechner have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Macleans, Paris Match, Noticias del Argentina, Out, and she has been featured on the television programs Entertainment Tonight, Extra, In the Life, and Studio Four. Appearances on radio include profiles on NPR’s The Fishko Files and Performance Today, WFMT’s Dame Myra Hess Recital Series, WNYC’s New Sounds with John Schaefer, and CBC’s Westcoast Performance and Richardson’s Roundup.
 
Sara Davis Buechner is a former faculty member of New York University, and has presented lectures and masterclasses worldwide, notably at the Royal Academy in London, the Juilliard School, Indiana University, and the Kobe-Yamate Gakuen in Osaka, Japan; and she is a regular adjudicator for the New York Concert Artists Guild and many other international music competition. Sara Davis Buechner is chief music consultant to Dover Publications, and plays the Yamaha Piano exclusively.