Rebecca Penneys leads a distinguished career as a recitalist, chamber musician, orchestral soloist, educator, and adjudicator. For five decades her passionate and insightful performances have held audiences spellbound. Hailed as a pianist of prodigious talent, she possesses a daredevil technique, the sort of charismatic stage presence that demands attention, and an interpretive gift that make her performances revelatory. 

Rebecca concertizes in the United States, East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, South America, Europe, Israel, and Canada.  She is a popular guest artist, keynote speaker, and teacher at national and international music conventions. Her artistry and deeply poetic insight have won her a large and loyal following. In 2002, she officially became an exclusive Steinway Artist and has performed many concerts for Steinway & Sons since then. Rebecca's playing leaves an indelible impression. Her ten current CD's on Fleur De Son Classics and Centaur Records are eloquent testimonies of a major artist of intelligence, originality, massive technique and bravura temperament. 

Born in Los Angeles, Rebecca made her recital debut at the age of nine and performed as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra when she was eleven. At seventeen, after winning many young artist competitions in the USA, she was awarded the unprecedented Special Critics' Prize at the Seventh International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Poland. Critics there described her as a genius of the piano.  Subsequently, she won the Most Outstanding Musician Prize at the Fifth Vienna Da Motta International Piano Competition (Portugal) and was Top Prizewinner in the Second Paloma O'Shea International Piano Competition (Spain). In 1974, she founded the acclaimed New Arts Trio, which won the prestigious Naumburg Award for Chamber Music (New York) on two separate occasions. The Trio has been Trio-in-Residence at the Chautauqua Institution since 1978. Fanfare Magazine praised the recent New Arts Trio CD as the most interesting and exciting disc of piano trios, or any chamber music, or any classical music the reviewer ever heard. Rebecca's teachers include Aube Tzerko, Leonard Stein, Rosina Lhevinne, Artur Rubinstein, Menahem Pressler, Gyorgy Sebok and Janos Starker.

Combining a busy concert schedule with seminars and master classes worldwide, Rebecca teaches a large class of international students at Eastman and Chautauqua. Her students are successful professionals on every continent. Rebecca has been Professor of Piano at the Eastman School of Music since 1980 and Chair of the Chautauqua Institution Piano Department since 1985. A resident artist at the Chautauqua Festival since 1978, she celebrated her 25th anniversary season by performing Beethoven's Emperor Concerto with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra in 2003. In 2001, she was appointed Visiting Artist at St. Petersburg College, Florida. The October 2001 issue of Clavier magazine features an interesting interview with her.

A renowned pedagogue, Rebecca has received extensive recognition for her ability to teach keyboard technique (Motion and Emotion) that allows pianists to achieve individual performance goals without physical strain or injury. At the Chautauqua Festival, she has created an extremely popular summer program combining traditional and innovative methods that is unique in the world of piano instruction. An annual four-day residential Pedagogy Workshop for teachers (Pedagogy As Art & Craft) inaugurated in August, 2004 is part of the exhilarating piano events that conclude each season's activities. Audiences everywhere are drawn to her keen musical intelligence, effortless technique, and seemingly endless imagination. www.rebeccapenneys.com