A pianist with “an artistic ferocity that captivated and astonished listeners” (Waverly Newspapers), Clare Longendyke is a soloist, chamber musician, and musical innovator who performs with American orchestras and on recital series around the world. Recent highlights include performances with orchestras in Minnesota, Iowa, Indiana, and Virginia, and the release of her debut solo CD in 2024, …of dreams unveiled, featuring works by Claude Debussy, Amy Williams, and Anthony R. Green. The album debuted at #2 on the Traditional Classical Billboard Chart and was praised as “a work of remarkable pianistic invention” (The WholeNote), “delightfully daring,” and “a CD that should not be missed” (EarRelevant).
“[Clare Longendyke] demonstrated perfect control, sometimes bending in so closely to her instrument one wondered whether her body might not simply merge with the keyboard.”
MIKE SHERER, WAVERLY NEWSPAPERS
A charming and charismatic performer, Clare’s passion for the music she plays radiates through her artistry and in the way she speaks from the concert stage. She has a contagious commitment to the music of our time, and her programming celebrates works by favorite composers of the past—Robert and Clara Schumann, Beethoven, and Debussy, to name a few—while creating space for those that are paving the way towards classical music’s more inclusive future. One of the highlights of her career has been to collaborate with living composers to commission new works. She relishes the opportunity to put her stamp on pieces of music that will go on to be staples of the piano repertoire for centuries. In the last decade, she has commissioned over 30 new solo and chamber music works and been involved in over 250 world premiere performances.
Clare’s 2024/25 season performance highlights include a chamber music recital at Carnegie Hall and collaborations with the Mankato Symphony Orchestra (MN) and Denver Young Artists Orchestra. Past appearances include The University of Chicago Presents, The Schubert Club of Minnesota, The Ordway Center for the Performing Arts (MN), Sandler Center for the Performing Arts (VA), The Palladium (IN), and Olin Arts Center (ME). Recent orchestral partners include Symphonicity (VA), Rochester Symphony Orchestra (MN), and the Oak Ridge Symphony (TN). Her playing has been heard on radio stations around the country, including NPR’s Performance Today.
Clare has lived and studied on both American coasts and abroad, earning degrees at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts and her Master’s and Doctor of Music from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. An ardent Francophile and fluent French speaker, she received the Fulbright-Harriet Hale Woolley Award in the Arts to study music at the École normale de musique in Paris in 2009. She has served as Artist-in-Residence at The University of Chicago (2019–21) and the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana (2023–24).
For Clare, performance is just one aspect of her role as an ambassador for classical music in today’s world. The connections she makes on concert stages, in classrooms, and everywhere in between help to foster a greater sense of community for the classical music field that she cares about so deeply.
Artist Statement
My childhood was filled with all kinds of music, from American jazz and folk to Bob Dylan and The Beatles. After a few months of lessons on a battery-operated miniature keyboard that barely fit my tiny, seven-year-old hands, my grandparents sent me their old Kimball upright from Florida: my first piano. It sat in the front entry of our Minnesota home, often subjected to treacherously cold gusts of wind when the door would open during our notoriously vicious winters. That December, those same grandparents sent me a selection of cassette tapes featuring classical hits, to inspire and steer my musical choices, I can only assume. When I got to the Arthur Rubinstein recording of Chopin’s most beloved piano works, I was captivated. I announced to my parents that my favorite composer was “Chop-in.”
I fell in love with music when my first grade teacher taught our class through song on a beaten up spinet piano in room 141 at Kenwood Elementary. From there, I fell in love with playing Disney music, arrangements of The Nutcracker, and watered-down classical standards. I didn’t play an original classical composition until I was a teenager, but when I did, I fell in love again. Bach triggered my obsessive need to overcome insurmountable challenges; Beethoven made me yearn to practice; but my favorite? Chopin, of course. Back then, I was ravenous for classical piano music. And I still am.
I believe that classical music is for everyone, no matter how you pronounce the names of its idolized composers or if you’ve ever attended a live orchestra concert. My artistic mission is to open the classical music stage to a broader range of representation, to shine light into the dark corners of classical music’s past where the work of women and composers of color is too often shelved, and to pave the way towards a more inclusive future by commissioning and performing new works of music by the composers I wish to see written about in text books for years to come.
Today, I make music for the people who don’t think they like classical music, for those who have never met a living composer or heard a new piece written in the last 5 years, and for classical music aficionados, eager to expand their knowledge of the art form through creative programming and fresh perspectives. I make music for everyone, because I believe that classical music is for everyone.