Pianist Christopher Guzman enjoys an international performing career, known for his versatility in styles ranging from the Baroque era to the avant-garde. Since winning top prizes in international competitions such as the Walter M. Naumburg Competition (USA), the Seoul International Music Competition (S. Korea), and the Isang Yun Competition (S. Korea), Mr. Guzman has performed across Europe, North and South America, and Asia. His victory at the Concours International de Piano d'Orléans in Orléans, France, led to extensive tours and masterclasses throughout the country.
Mr. Guzman has appeared in major international venues such as Tokyo's Suntory Hall, Leipzig's Gewandhaus, Buenos Aires's CCK, Carnegie's Weill Hall, and London's Wigmore Hall. As a chamber musician, he collaborates regularly with members of the world's most prestigious orchestras and soloists. He is also a sought-after orchestral pianist, and as such has performed with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic. Mr. Guzman joined Chicago's Grant Park Symphony Orchestra as a keyboardist in 2024.
While Mr. Guzman has earned several international accolades for performing the traditional Western canon, many of his performances showcase music written after 1900. His performances have included world premieres by Donald Martino, Nico Muhly, and Paul Schoenfield. The New York Times hailed his performance of Christopher Theofanidis's Statues as "coiled and explosive." His CD of German and Austrian music from the past one hundred years, Vienne et aprés, is available on the Tessitures label. His CD of Paul Reale's compositions, Chopin's Ghosts, on the Naxos label, was included in Fanfare magazine's Top Five releases of 2018. Other world premiere recordings include solo works by Peter Ablinger and Jörg Widmann.
Born in Texas, Christopher Guzman began studying piano at age nine and violoncello two years later. He later studied at the University of Texas at Austin, the New England Conservatory, and The Juilliard School. In addition to performing, he is also a Professor of Piano at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. He previously taught at Penn State University and has taught masterclasses throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.
Upcoming Events
Friday, September 12, 2025 Solo Recital Mendelssohn Performing Arts Center Rockford, IL "Sposalizio" from Années de Pèlerinage Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
English Suite in G minor Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
“Los requiebros” from Goyescas Enrique Granados (1867-1916)
Bagatelles (selections), op.6 Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
Carnival Jest from Vienna, op.26 Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Thursday, September 25, 2025 Solo Recital: Music in the Great Hall Frances M. Maguire Art Musuem, Saint Joseph's University Merion Station, PA "Sposalizio" from Années de Pèlerinage Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
English Suite in G minor Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
“Los requiebros” from Goyescas Enrique Granados (1867-1916)
Bagatelles (selections), op.6 Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
Carnival Jest from Vienna, op.26 Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Sunday, October 26, 2025 Olmos Ensemble Bennack Concert Hall at UIW , San Antonio, TX Mark Teplitsky, Flute
Ilya Shterenberg, Clarinet
Eric Gratz, Violin
Jeff Garza, horn
Julian Schwarz, Cello
Christopher Guzman, Piano Ippolito - Sonata for cello and Piano (*World Premiere)
Karg-Elert - Jugend for Flute, clarinet, horn, and piano op. 139a
Müller - serenade for flute, horn, and piano op. 15
Kahn - quintet op. 54 for clarinet, horn, cello, and piano
Sunday, January 11, 2026 Winter Chamber Series: Bienen Faculty and Guests Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, Northwestern University Evanston, IL Akiko Tarumoto, violin
Teng Li, viola
Kenneth Olsen, cello
Christopher Guzman, piano Hindemith: Viola Sonata, op. 11, no.4
Smetana: Piano Trio, op. 15
Brahms: Piano Quartet in C minor, op.60
Tuesday, January 13, 2026 Dreams and Departures Guaneri Hall Chicago, IL Lucy Fitz Gibbon, soprano; Adam Neiman and Christopher Guzman, piano Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Viola
Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Vergissmeinnicht
Elizabeth Ogonek (b. 1989): Blue & Green
Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Fantasia in F minor, D. 940
Wednesday, January 14, 2026 Dreams and Departures Guaneri Hall Chicago, IL Lucy Fitz Gibbon, soprano; Adam Neiman and Christopher Guzman, piano Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Viola
Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Vergissmeinnicht
Elizabeth Ogonek (b. 1989): Blue & Green
Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Fantasia in F minor, D. 940
Friday, February 06, 2026 Valley Symphony Orchestra McAllen Performing Arts Center McAllen, TX Pianists Christopher Guzman and Haysun Kang
Music Director Peter Dabrowski Mikhail Bogdanov: Piano Concerto No. 2 for Four Hands
Saturday, February 07, 2026 Valley Symphony Orchestra TSC Performing Arts Center Brownsville, TX Pianists Christopher Guzman and Haysun Kang
Music Director Peter Dabrowski Mikhail Bogdanov: Piano Concerto No. 2 for Four Hands
Sunday, April 19, 2026 CSO Chamber Music Logan Center for the Arts, University of Chicago Chicago, IL Jennifer Gunn, Flute
Kenneth Olsen, Cello
Cynthia Yeh, Percussion
Christopher Guzman, Piano Joyce: Light and Dark
Villa-Lobos: Assobio a Jato (“Jet Whistle”) for flute and cello
Gosfield: Daughters of the Industrial Revolution
Chen Yi: Qi for flute, cello, percussion, piano
Dehnhard: WAKE UP! for piccolo and alarm clock
Shaw: Boris Kerner
Farrenc: Piano Trio No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 45
Sunday, May 03, 2026 Harper Symphony Orchestra Harper Performing Arts Center Palatine, IL Benjamin Firer, Music Director Schumann: Piano Concerto in A minor, op.54
Saturday, August 02, 2025 Impressions and Passions: 2025 Vivace Opening Concert St. James Episcopal Wilmington, NC Dmitri Berlinsky, violin; Andrew Shulman, cello; Amy Schwartz Moretti, violin; Dmitri Vorobiev, piano Debussy: Sonata for cello and piano, L. 135
Ravel: Sonata for violin and piano No. 2, M. 77
Piazzolla: Primavera porteño Piano Trio (arranged by Jose Bragato)
Mendelssohn: Piano Trio in D minor more info...
Tuesday, October 24, 2023 Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Community Arts Center Williamsport, PA Williamsport Symphony Orchestra
Gerardo Edelstein, conductor Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, op.43 more info...
Saturday, October 21, 2023 Yaniv's Salute to the Boston Pops Coronado Performing Arts Center Rockford, IL Rockford Symphony Orchestra,
Yaniv Attar, conductor Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue more info...
Sunday, August 06, 2023 Vivace Music Festival Wilson Center Wilmington, NC Ani Kavafian & Sunmi Chang, Violins Moszkowski: Suite for Two Violins and Piano, op.71
Friday, August 04, 2023 Vivace Music Festival Wilson Center Wilmington, NC With Dmitri Berlinsky, violin, and Andrew Shulman, cello Beethoven: “Ghost†Trio in D Major, op.70 no.1
Wednesday, July 12, 2023 Faculty Recital at the Atlantic Music Festival Colby College Waterville, ME Franck: Quintet for Piano and Strings
Pierre Jalbert: Ephemeral Objects more info...
Saturday, July 01, 2023 Recital for the Matthay Festival 2023 Recital Hall University Park, PA more info...
Wednesday, June 14, 2023 Chamber Music at Music at Penns Woods Recital Hall at Penn State University University Park, PA Debussy: Sonata for Violin and Piano with Max Zorin, violin
Rachmaninoff: Selections from Etudes-Tableaux, op.39 more info...
Monday, June 05, 2023 Concert for Ukraine Grace Lutheran Church State College, PA All proceeds go to Nizhyn, Ukraine, State College's new sister city. www.SistersSister.org Valentin Silvestrov: Postludium DSCH
Myroslav Skoryk: Spanish Dance
Friday, June 02, 2023 Pennsylvania Music Teachers Association: Penn State Faculty Conc Recital Hall at Penn State University University Park, PA Poulenc: Oboe Sonata and Ravel's Habanera
Ian Clarke (b. 1960): Maya for two flutes and piano
Chopin: Polonaise in F-sharp minor, op.44
Sunday, May 28, 2023 Recital at the McNay Leeper Auditorium, McNay Art Museum San Antonio, TX Bach: English Suite in G minor
Chopin: Mazurka in E minor, op.41 no.1
Chopin: Polonaise in F-sharp minor, op.44
Rachmaninoff: Prelude in F-sharp minor, op. 23 no.1
Rachmaninoff: Selections from Études-Tableaux, op.39
Monday, May 22, 2023 Chamber Music with the Olmos Ensemble Laurel Heights United Methodist Church San Antonio, TX Camille Saint-Saëns - Caprice on Danish and Russian Airs
Richard Strauss - Violin Sonata
Georges Hüe - Fantasy for Flute and Piano
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Quintet for Piano and Winds in Eb Major K. 452 more info...
Thursday, January 23, 2020 Recital with Naomi Seidman, flute Recital Hall, Penn State University University Park, PA
Sunday, January 19, 2020 Soloist with the Pennsylvania Chamber Orchestra Recital Hall, Penn State University University Park, PA Pennsylvania Chamber Orchestra, led by Music Director Yaniv Attar Mozart Concerto in D minor, K. 466 more info...
Sunday, November 03, 2019 Recital with Timothy Deighton, viola UMass Amherst Fine Arts Center - Bezanson Recital Hall Amherst, MA R. Clarke: Viola Sonata
Hindemith: Sonata for viola and piano, op.11 no.4
Bloch: Suite for viola and piano more info...
Sunday, October 27, 2019 Recital with Milan Milisavljevic, viola Recital Hall, Penn State School of Music University Park, PA Brahms: Sonata for Viola and Piano in E-flat Major, op.120 no.2
Schumann: Adagio and Allegro, op.70, for Viola and Piano more info...
Friday, October 25, 2019 Recital with Timothy Deighton, viola Recital Hall, Penn State School of Music University Park, PA R. Clarke: Viola Sonata
Hindemith: Sonata for viola and piano, op.11 no.4
Bloch: Suite for viola and piano more info...
Monday, October 21, 2019 "Sabores Latinos": Chamber music with the Olmos Ensemble Laurel Heights United Methodist Church San Antonio, TX Villa-Lobos, Fantasia Concertante, clarinet, bassoon, piano
Turina/arr. S. Jutt – “Sonata Espanolaâ€, for flute and piano
Granados – “Los Requiebros†from Goyescas, piano solo
Piazzolla- Histoire du Tango, violin, piano
Miguel Del Aguila: Tango Trio, violin, cl., piano more info...
Sunday, October 13, 2019 Recital with Timothy Deighton, viola Shangraw Performance Hall, Mary Lindsay Welch Honors Hall at Lyc Williamsport, PA R. Clarke: Viola Sonata
Hindemith: Sonata for viola and piano, op.11 no.4
Bloch: Suite for viola and piano more info...
Sunday, July 07, 2019 Soloist with Monteux Music Festival Orchestra Forest Studio at the Pierre Monteux School and Summer Festival Hancock, Maine Gershwin: Concerto in F more info...
Wednesday, July 03, 2019 Chamber Music at the Monteux Music Festival Forest Studio at the Pierre Monteux School and Summer Festival Hancock, Maine TBA more info...
Northwestern's Bienen School of MusicMr. Guzman is a Professor of Piano at Northwestern University, located in Evanston, IL.click here for more info
CDs
"Chopin's Ghosts" CD on Amazon.comMulti-award-winning composer Paul Reale has a distinctly American voice, enriched and given touches of familiarity through references to folk idiom and musical ancestors such as Bartók and Kodály. This program brings together Reale's works for cello and piano. His earliest, Séance, is a haunting combination of modernist sounds and Baroque melodies. The operatic Cello Sonata No. 1 daringly uses What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor as the backbone of its finale, and the recent Chopin's Ghost explores the Romantic composer's long, weaving lines and evokes his poetic spirit.https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B12HMG1#
"Children's Palace" CD on Amazon.comFROM THE COMPOSER - I have always thought of wind chamber music as fanciful problem solving. From the environment of the serenades by Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Igor Stravinsky's Octet, there is a kind of lighthearted agility that underlines the music, not that it is superficial, but it can have great weight like Mozart's Serenade in C minor, K.388. Wind quintet music stands in sharp contrast to the implied gravitas of string quartets and their concomitant sweatiness. The biggest influence in my wind writing, overall, is probably the music of French composers of the last century. There is an almost neo-classical balance in the progress of materials in those works. The title I have chosen for the album, Children's Palace, has an oblique reference to Maurice Ravel s L'enfant et les sortilèges. In Ravel's one-act opera, familiar objects come to life and assume dramatic personae. My wind instruments in these sonatas develop lifelike qualities as each piece proceeds. The word Sonata implies abstract structural procedures. Here, the pieces are more like tiny dramas.
Paul Reale has a catalogue of compositions large and diverse which over the course of his career has retained a distinctly fresh, original voice. It includes 12 piano sonatas, of which Sonata No.6 The Waste Land received a New Ariel Music Competition prize, three piano concertos and nine concertos for various instruments, including the Columbus Concerto for organ and winds, which was composed for the 500th anniversary of the Discovery of America. Reale has also written two song cycles and several other vocal and dramatic works. His vocal piece Two Madrigals was a finalist in the 2009 Cincinnati Camerata Choral Composition Contest. Among Reale's orchestral music, Caldera with Ice Cave (MSR MS1703) reached the semi-finals of the 2015 American Prize competition. His distinguished chamber music has also been widely performed and recorded. Seven Deadly Sins for violin and piano (Naxos 9.70204) was released in a series of recordings of his complete works for violin, in addition to Chopin's Ghosts, which features music for cello (Naxos 8.559820). In 2017, Reale's Le Bonheur de Vivre clarinet trio was chosen by the Pierrot Ensemble for Volume 1 of their Ablaze series (Ablaze Records, AR-00035). His Sacred Geometry 2 for violin and viola received a Special Mention at the 2005 International Epic Music Composition Competition, and the Simplexity string quartet was a winner in the First Seattle Composers' Alliance String Quartet Competition in 2014. As an author, Reale has written both aesthetic and analytical articles on 20th century composers, from Ives to Boulez. Reale began his education at Columbia College studying English literature and the hard sciences, and in 1967 received a degree in composition under the primary tutelage of Otto Luening and Chou Wen-Chung. A decision to enter the teaching profession prompted further study at the University of Pennsylvania, where he came under the influence of George Rochberg and George Crumb. A dedicated educator, Paul Reale received the Charles and Harriet Luckman Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1995, and since 2004 is Professor Emeritus at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). click here for more info
"Vienne et après" CD on Apple MusicA collection of works celebrating German and Austrian piano music from the 20th and 21st centuries.
To order a CD, please contact Christopher Guzmanclick here for more info
Après un rêveMusic for Violin and Piano by Debussy, Fauré, and Franck, with violinist Max Zorin. click here for more info
Northwestern's Bienen School of MusicMr. Guzman is a Professor of Piano at Northwestern University, located in Evanston, IL.click here for more info
Christopher Guzman performs Alexander Scriabin's Sonata No. 7, "White Mass"
Scriabin
Christopher Guzman
A. Scriabin - Prelude in B-flat Minor, op. 37 no. 1
A. Scriabin - Etude in D-flat Major, op. 8 no. 10
A. Scriabin - Feuillet d'album, op. 45 no. 1
A. Scriabin- Etude in D-sharp Minor, op. 8 no. 12
The 7th Seoul International Music Competition presented by LG 2nd Round(Sunday, April 17, 2011)
Griffes and Granados
Christopher Guzman
C. T. Griffes - Sonata, A. 85
E. Granados - Los Requiebros (from Goyescas)
The 7th Seoul International Music Competition presented by LG 1st Round(Thursday, April 14, 2011)
Beethoven Sonata in E Major, Op.109
Christopher Guzman plays Beethoven's Piano Sonata #30, Opus 109 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church for the San Antonio International Piano Competition's Beethoven Festival.
Pianist Christopher Guzman enjoys an international performing career, known for his versatility in styles ranging from the Baroque era to the avant-garde. Since winning top prizes in international competitions such as the Walter M. Naumburg Competition (USA), the Seoul International Music Competition (S. Korea), and the Isang Yun Competition (S. Korea), Mr. Guzman has performed across Europe, North and South America, and Asia. His victory at the Concours International de Piano d'Orléans in Orléans, France, led to extensive tours and masterclasses throughout the country.
Mr. Guzman has appeared in major international venues such as Tokyo's Suntory Hall, Leipzig's Gewandhaus, Buenos Aires's CCK, Carnegie's Weill Hall, and London's Wigmore Hall. As a chamber musician, he collaborates regularly with members of the world's most prestigious orchestras and soloists. He is also a sought-after orchestral pianist, and as such has performed with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic. Mr. Guzman joined Chicago's Grant Park Symphony Orchestra as a keyboardist in 2024.
While Mr. Guzman has earned several international accolades for performing the traditional Western canon, many of his performances showcase music written after 1900. His performances have included world premieres by Donald Martino, Nico Muhly, and Paul Schoenfield. The New York Times hailed his performance of Christopher Theofanidis's Statues as "coiled and explosive." His CD of German and Austrian music from the past one hundred years, Vienne et aprés, is available on the Tessitures label. His CD of Paul Reale's compositions, Chopin's Ghosts, on the Naxos label, was included in Fanfare magazine's Top Five releases of 2018. Other world premiere recordings include solo works by Peter Ablinger and Jörg Widmann.
Born in Texas, Christopher Guzman began studying piano at age nine and violoncello two years later. He later studied at the University of Texas at Austin, the New England Conservatory, and The Juilliard School. In addition to performing, he is also a Professor of Piano at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. He previously taught at Penn State University and has taught masterclasses throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.