Michael Leonardo Davidman

REVIEWS

2025 American Piano Awards Competition

“Following his remarkable performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30, Mr. Davidman was awarded first place in the competition. As the top prize winner (the 50th winner of the competition since it began 1979), he will also embark on a recital tour during the 2026-2027 season, along with concert engagements with the American Pianist Award’s partner orchestras, including the Phoenix Symphony, Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra, Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and others.”

--- Michael Davidman, April 9, 2024, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor Op. 30, JoAnn Falletta, conductor, American Pianist Awards Competition, Curtis Institute of Music News

2025 American Piano Awards Competition

“Davidman had played it with thunderous authority and loads of interpretive nuance on his way to the competition’s first prize…….and the excitement it produced swept everything before it.”

--- Jay Harvey Upstage, April 6, 2024, Sergei Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30, JoAnn Falletta, conductor, Indiana Symphony Orchestra

it produced swept everything before it.”

--- Jay Harvey Upstage, April 6, 2024, Sergei Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30, JoAnn Falletta, conductor, Indiana Symphony Orchestra

2025 American Piano Awards Competition

Russian concertos inspire American Piano Awards finalists

I've been openly a fan of Davidman since he was a finalist in the 2021 competition. I was particularly inspired by his mastery of chamber music in the Cesar Franck piano quintet. Treading into territory I usually avoid — comparison with recordings of the masters — I evoked the shade of Alfred Cortot (1877-1962) and that French pianist's "intense sensitivity and ample yet varied tone."

That phrase also applies in magnified form to how he played the Rachmaninoff Third Friday night. In the torrential first-movement cadenza, I was struck by a matter of posture: There is no wasted motion in Davidman's attack. Sure, the hands fly up sometimes when phrases end a "paragraph," but as phrase succeeds phrase in succession, he is all business.

He seems capable of the most vigorous playing using the same posture and almost the same hand and arm positions that he does in the melting lyricism that also pervades the work. This control allows him to put so much variety of expression in slow-moving music (the second movement) and to make crescendos seem to build strength from within rather than having loudness imposed upon them as they mount in intensity. Naturally, that way of husbanding his resources allowed him to apply the extra forcefulness required in the finale with aplomb. In one of the concerto repertoire's most exciting conclusions, Davidman's tonal mastery meant that there was no banging to be heard, felt, or seen in his performance.”

--- Jay Harvey Upstage, April 4, 2024, Sergei Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30, JoAnn Falletta, conductor, Indiana Symphony Orchestra

2025 American Piano Awards Competition

The Jazz Kitchen – Adjudicated round American Pianist Awards Competition

Davidman is one of the two to play Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra this weekend under the baton of guest conductor JoAnn Falletta. In the next to last stage of the current competition, he offered two vigorous outbursts, between which “Yellow Roses for a Pianist” (to translate the work of a Spanish title) offered lyrical balm. It showcased the rounded phrasing and melodic gifts Davidman has exhibited by past performances here.

As for the outbursts, the first deluge was Nikolai Kapustin’s “Toccatina,” a perpetual motion onslaught emphasizing the pianist’s crisp, well-regulated articulation. The other downpour was Michael Abels “Iconoclasm,” whose title signaled a jumpy intensity with a little more wildly distributed accents than the more melodic “Toccatina.” Both works elicited a huge response.

--- Adjudicated round, American Pianists Awards, The Jazz Kitchen, Indianapolis, IN, Jay Harvey Upstage, April 3, 2025

2025 American Piano Awards Competition

APA Premiere Series reaches an end-of-year peak with Michael Davidman

2025 American Pianist Awards, Premier Series, December 9, 2025, review by Jay Harvey

Michael Davidman delivered on promise he showed in 2021. In the chamber-music segment of the 2021 competition, Davidman enchanted me with the way he played the Cesar Franck piano quintet with the Dover String Quartet. The centerpiece of his recital yesterday was Franck's Prelude, Chorale and Fugue, another masterpiece conspicuously indebted to the composer's mastery of the church organ.

The delicacy with which he played sweeping ornamented figures against the chorale theme reminded me again of Davidman's apparent feeling for French pianism, which I cited three years ago, with its star proponents' "intense sensitivity and ample yet varied tone." After a transition to the Fugue, that section honored concentrated variations of mood and texture. The clarity of the layered voices was remarkable, and the heart-stirring climax of the stretto approach to the final chords thrilled. Davidman’s was as fine a performance of this masterpiece as I ever hope to hear.

The same holds true of Mozart's piano concertos, the most beloved of which, Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467, Davidman played Sunday in close fellow-feeling with the orchestra. Brightness rules in the concerto as a whole. The orchestral tutti had majesty before the piano's entrance in the first movement. Davidman showed off a lovely trill, which was hardly a surprise. His solo cadenza was fascinating, and the shorter times unaccompanied, those "holds" or fermata in the third movement, were cute. I don't mean that in a derogatory sense. They were just a precious part of the effervescence of the performance.

Imagine how poignant it was minutes later when Davidman offered his encore, announcing only that it was the work of a composer who died a century ago this year. Then he played a transcription of "Vissi d'arte" from "Tosca," the title character's second-act aria that's all about loss, to the brink of self-pity, but out of justifiable desperation at the impending evil,

"Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore" Living for art, living for love — who expressed it better than Giacomo Puccini? And who can represent it as well as artists of Michael Davidman's caliber?

December 9, 2025, Review by Jay Harvey

American Pianists Awards - Premier Series

Jay Harvey, Upstage Review

Upstage Commentary on jazz, classical music, theater, and dance in Indiana and beyond.

Basile Theater, Indianapolis, IN

December 8, 2024

Now after three years he's back to vie again for the top prize in the American Piano Awards. At the Indiana History Center Sunday afternoon he played his Premiere Series program. The format for all five 2025 finalists is one-half solo recital, one-half concerto performance with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. In the chamber-music segment of the 2021 competition, Davidman enchanted me with the way he played the Cesar Franck piano quintet with the Dover String Quartet. The centerpiece of his recital yesterday was Franck's Prelude, Chorale and Fugue, another masterpiece conspicuously indebted to the composer's mastery of the church organ, specifically Paris' Sainte-Clotilde, where Franck served for thirty years.

His "home" instrument was responsive to his creative muse, and in works like these two, he built upon that affinity in grand style. Davidman responded imaginatively to the blend of light and shade in the Prelude. His patrician touch suited the quasi-sacred atmosphere of the theme, and his deft hesitation before launching into the Chorale mimicked an organist's adjustment of registration between contrasting episodes.

The delicacy with which he played sweeping ornamented figures against the chorale theme reminded me again of Davidman's apparent feeling for French pianism, which I cited three years ago, with its star proponents' "intense sensitivity and ample yet varied tone." After a transition to the Fugue, that section honored concentrated variations of mood and texture. The clarity of the layered voices was remarkable, and the heart-stirring climax of the stretto approach to the final chords thrilled. Davidman's was as fine a performance of this masterpiece as I ever hope to hear, moved as I was by this weekend's restoration of the grande dame of Parisian churches, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame.

Davidman opened the program with J.S. Bach's Toccata in D major, BWV 912. An air of spontaneity pervaded the performance, and there was considerable freedom in the way Davidman conveyed changes of direction. In detail, the sequences that load the toccata's first section had a Vivaldian flair, all of them clearly defined and linked to their neighbors. It was as if Davidman orchestrated the fugal portions, with a question-and-answer manner that had the reciprocal richness of dialogue.

That feeling for a piece's inherent drama, properly proportioned, carried over to Camille Saint-Saens' "Danse Macabre," in Franz Liszt's transcription arranged by Vladimir Horowitz. The crystalline melody, darkened by demonic energy, shone throughout. No matter how colored and complicated by adornment, its features remained clear. Davidman's technical adroitness had that deceptive appearance of naturalness you always get with virtuosity at its most assured. He drew down the energy toward the end, when it was easy to picture the subsiding of the collective menace as the spirits resume their period of inactivity.

Brightness rules in the concerto as a whole. The orchestral tutti had majesty before the piano's entrance in the first movement. Davidman showed off a lovely trill, which was hardly a surprise. His solo cadenza was fascinating, and the shorter times unaccompanied, those "holds" or fermata in the third movement, were cute. I don't mean that in a derogatory sense. They were just a precious part of the effervescence of the performance.

Imagine how poignant it was minutes later when Davidman offered his encore, announcing only that it was the work of a composer who died a century ago this year.

Then he played his transcription of "Vissi d'arte" from "Tosca," the title character's second-act aria that's all about loss, to the brink of self-pity, but out of justifiable desperation at the impending evil of a powerful predator. I was as moved by how Davidman played the aria, especially after reflecting on that Mozart middle movement. "Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore" Living for art, living for love — who expressed it better than Giacomo Puccini? And who can represent it as well as artists of Michael Davidman's caliber?

Review by Jay Harvey, December 8, 2024t

The Summit Music Festival

Maurice Ravel: Valses Nobles et Sentimentales, Frédéric Chopin: Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 23, Florent Schmitt: "Sous la tente" from Salammbô, Op. 76, César Franck: Prélude, Choral et Fugue, FWV 21, Frédéric Chopin: Scherzo No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 31

The opening recital was given last night by the 27-year-old American pianist, Michael Davidman, who studied at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege with Mr. Briskin for ten years, after which he went on to the Curtis Institute and the Juilliard School, and other well-known teachers such as Robert McDonald, Jerome Lowenthal, Stanislav Ioudenitch and Stephen Hough.

He is one of the most exciting young pianists around. He exudes confidence but not arrogance, he understands particularly well the Romantic and Impressionist idioms of the music on this program, and he is a finished artist.

The Ravel Valses Nobles et Sentimentales were delightful! The first waltz had spirit and high energy as well as charm. The second was quiet, thoughtful, reflective. The third was light and playful, and the fourth, dreamy. Other waltzes ranged from tentative to outgoing to boisterous to slow and searching. The work concluded beautifully with a long, slow fadeout.

Mr. Davidman's playing of the Chopin Ballade was thoughtful and eloquent, with a wide range of dynamics and many interesting ideas. It was so good that it seemed he was creating the music - something new and fresh - as he went along (as opposed to giving yet another stale version of an overplayed warhorse). This is how a performance SHOULD sound!

The Schmitt work is based on Flaubert's historical novel, Salammbô, which takes place in Carthage in the Third Century BCE. It begins with a mysterious-sounding motive accompanied by fast, repeated octaves and then chords. It is largely in sections that start and stop, and the emotions vary from rambunctious to thoughtful to crying out. The harmonies seemed quasi-Impressionist while the feel of this rarely heard work was Romantic.

Mr. Davidman set sail in the Franck Prélude, Chorale and Fugue, giving an interpretation that had elegance, refinement and expressivity. He showed the music's ins and outs of intensity and was sensitive to the colors of the changing harmonies. The Chorale displayed deep thought, and he played with a DEEP tone. The Fugue flowed and soared. It was powerful, and he showed clearly the point at which the themes of the two previous movements return.

The final work on the printed program (which was played without an intermission) was the B-Flat Minor Scherzo of Chopin. It was played with drama and brilliance. The right-hand fast notes in the middle section sounded like professional caliber ice skating and there were some nice original touches, such as the unusually long pause before the main theme returned afterwards, and, lastly, the mad dash to the end. Michael Davidman played one encore, which I didn't recognize. As it sounded like Rachmaninoff, I was, indeed, pleased to learn that it was the Earl Wild transcription of a Rachmaninoff Song, "The Muse," his Op. 34, No. 1. It was calm, searching and lovely.

This was a wonderful concert!

Summit Music Festival Thornwood, New York, August 5th, 2024

Donald Isler, The Classical Music Guide

Results of the 2022 Long-Thibaud International Competition

Trained at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, Michael Davidman magnificently defends Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 with this class, this kind of aristocracy that we recognize in American pianists and that we admire in Eugene Istomin, Byron Janis or Raymond Lewenthal, for example, where the sound is clear, sometimes sharp, deep but never harsh, combined with great lyricism. The young candidate shows a real musician’s personality; it dominates the work, really tells a story, with ample phrases, large breaths, a wide dynamic palette, a sense of listening in the dialogues with the orchestra in the second movement in particular, Michael Davidman offers a flamboyant interpretation. Michael Davidman won Third Prize and the prestigious Orchestra Prize.

Review on ResMusica by the editorial staff, November 4, 2022, Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No. 1, conductor, Colonel François Boulanger, conductor, Orchestre Symponique de la Garde Republicaine, Paris, France.

Long-Thibaud International Piano Competition – Combined Reviews

“The American, Michael Davidman, 25, sets the bar high with a program focused on the spectacular and atmospheric, impressing the public with…his chiseled and fiery playing tends to extremes, breathtaking and flamboyant, continues with Rachmaninoff’s 2nd sonata, which gives pride of place to the explosive touch of the pianist to the delight of an enthusiastic audience.”

Semifinal Round, 2022 Long-Thibaud International Piano Competition, Salet Cortot, Paris, France,

Review by Melissa Khong, Pianiste, 11/10/2022

2021 American Piano Awards Chamber and Concerto Rounds

At the Indiana History Center, I heard the first movement of the Franck Piano Quintet in F minor which Michael Davidman played with the Dover Quartet and this was the first time I heard him and I was enthralled by his playing Friday…the delicate force of Davidman answering phrases to his string colleagues' "questions" as the Franck got under way was captivating. His accents, when called for, were impressive, ringing out without overemphasis. The facility in rapid passagework was unstinting and always under control, yet with the flair of spontaneity.

On Sunday, Davidman played Franz Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major at the Hilbert Circle Theater. I was looking forward to appreciating Davidman's own "intense sensitivity and ample yet varied tone" in the Liszt concerto, and I was not disappointed.

This was not adventitious excitement applied out of nowhere; it had been present, thanks to Davidman's acuity and interpretive elan, from the start. All told, and given the simpatico accompaniment and the orchestration's brilliant variety, this was one of the best concerto performances I've heard in recent years.

Review by Jay Harvey, June 27, 2021

Michael Davidman Recital at the Greenwich House Music School

Michael Davidman is one of the most exciting young pianists I’ve heard. By now I’ve had the pleasure more than a few times. Particularly memorable was a sensational performance he gave in 2015 of the Liszt E-Flat Concerto seven years ago.

Michael Davidman came out on stage exuding confidence and immediately threw himself into the first movement of the Chopin Second Sonata. It was powerful, but one was soon aware that he was always listening, and never functioning on “auto-pilot” as there were interesting shadings and other fine effects, such as the way he came into a beautiful “landing” of the second theme in the recapitulation. The last movement, surely the most unusual, almost atonal work which Chopin created, featured swirls, surging, and very effective dynamics.

Davidman’s piece, The Lady from the Sea, is an extended work which reminded this listener of various genres. It sounded of both Impressionistic yet also Romantic influences. One section sounded like it came from a popular song with sophisticated harmonies, and another had a lovely scherzando feeling to it. There was much virtuosic playing and what also seemed like virtuoso page-turning (tapping?!) on the tablet containing the score, which the pianist played from.

Michael Davidman played one encore, Los Requiebros, from the Goyescas, of Granados. It had an Iberian charm and sophistication to it, and lovely melodies with filigree work that became incredibly brilliant and ornate. It was terrific!

Review by Don Isler, The Greenwich House Music School, NY, June 14, 2022

Peninsula Reviews - Monterey Symphony — Talented young artists from the Curtis Institute of Music

March 18, 2018

by Lyn Bronson

I can't remember when I have enjoyed a performance of a Mozart piano concerto as much as I did the dazzling, charming performance we heard last night by 20-year-old Michael Davidman. A student at the Curtis Institute of Music, Davidman was sharing the limelight on this occasion with guest conductor Conor Gray Covington, a recent graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, who at a young age already has an impressive list of accomplishments to his credit.

We heard Davidman in a performance of Mozart's Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467. Davidman made it all look very easy, which, of course, it is not. Davidman's technique is so beautifully controlled you were never aware of the inherent difficulties he was overcoming. This was music making au natural. He made the concerto sound fresh and spontaneous, he made the lyricism of the Andante movement sweet and seductive, and he performed the Presto final movement (with its spirited dialogs back and forth between the orchestra and piano) so magnificently it brought the audience to its feet with wild applause. Davidman rewarded the audience with one encore — his own arrangement, improvised on the spot, of the aria Vissi d'arte from Puccini's Tosca.

The 2017 Music Academy of the West Music Festival

Included in the mix was the standout twenty-year-old Michael Davidman who studies at the Curtis Institute - a talent to watch. His account of Rachmaninoff's complex and quirky Sonata Op. 36 (1931 version) was electrifying for its sweeping yet refined sentimentality and pyrotechnical prowess which he tossed off fiendishly difficult passagework with great finesse - and a few gasps were heard from the spellbound audience.

Mirroirs, CA, The Classical Music Journal, Santa Barbara, CA - Leonne Lewis, June21, 2017

The Classical Music Guide Forums

Review by Don Isler

Summit Music Festival, Manhattanville College
Purchase, New York, July 24th, 2015

Michael Davidman is an exceptionally talented 18 year old musician, a recent graduate of Hunter College High School in New York City, and the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division. His piano studies for the last 10 years have been with the eminent pianist and pedagogue, Efrem Briskin.

Michael Davidman was born to play works like the Liszt Concerto. I heard him play it a few months ago as winner of the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Senior Division Concerto Competition. Indeed, at that performance, he created a sensation as he seemed to race the orchestra to the conclusion. One was reminded of the famous Horowitz vs. Beecham race to the finish of the Tchaikovsky First Concerto, as they made their New York debuts together in 1928. (Horowitz won.)

Mr. Davidman has power, fantastically clean scales, and arpeggios, and seems to just shake massive octaves out of his arms. He has a beautiful tone, a wide range of expression and he never does anything unmusical. As at the previous performance, there was a huge accelerando and a massive piling up of sound at the end.

Mr. Davidman concluded this very demanding program, which lasted all of about 50 minutes, with excerpts from Puccini's operas, Tosca and La Boheme. These transcriptions, as I guessed correctly, were made by the pianist, a serious opera lover. (He did tell me, afterwards, that, in contrast with the Liszt transcriptions, no notes were added to the original scores.) They were beyond gorgeous.

Donald Isler, July 25, 2015, The Classical Music Guide Forums

New York Concerti Sinfonietta Shining Stars Music Competition

Mich

Michael Davidman gave a powerful, massive account of the thickly textured piano part on the Steinway 9-foot concert grand piano. The string players contributed beautifully shaded playing in the quiet passages, but stepped-up to match the assertiveness of the piano in the climaxes.

Rachmaninoff’s “Trio élégaique” No. 1 in G Minor, was played here by a one-off trio assembled for the occasion performed by Hannah Tarley, violin (2015 International Shining Stars Competition winner), with pianist Michael Davidman (MSM Precollege student headed for Curtis Institute of Music this fall, 2015), and cellist Eddie Pogossian, (a Kovner Fellow at The Juilliard School).

New York Concerti Sinfonietta presented by Dr. Julie Jordan, teacher in The Juilliard School Evening Division, founder and artistic director of the Sinfonietta and its international competitions.

Review by Michael Sherwin, from The Epoch Times, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, May 14, 2015

2010 Lang Lang Manhattan School of Music Masterclass

Franz Liszt - Hungarian Rhapsody No. 10 in E Major

“You play beautifully and technically brilliant”, Lang Lang (2010)

Manhattan School of Music, Borden Hall, NY, September 23, 2010

Music at Menlo Chamber Music Festival, Atherton, CA

Remembering Music@Menlo 2008

The two 11-year-old youngsters in the photo, violinist Stephen Waarts and pianist Michael Davidman, could be poster boys symbolic of what Music@Menlo has brought to the San Francisco Bay Area over the past six years.

These two 11-years-old prodigies, and I rarely apply that term, and never loosely, performed in the last of the Koret Young Performers Concert series on Aug. 6.

The best of the best at this concert were Waarts and Davidman, both of whom were physically small enough they could be blown off of the stage by an overactive air conditioner. But big enough talents in music to just about blow the audience out of its seats.

These two are a duo that was made for each other, twins in the most beautiful interpretive blending of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Sonata for Violin and Piano in B-flat Major, K. 454” you may ever hear. I would go anywhere to hear them perform it again.

Review by By Keith Kreitman, The San Mateo Journal, Aug 12, 2008 Updated Jul 12, 2017