Variations On a Theme By Beethoven for Two Pianos, Op. 35

Dubbed “The Dynamic Duo” by Yale School of Music Professors Ward Davenny and Donald Currier, the prize-winning Merdinger-Greene Two Piano Team is comprised of Susan Merdinger and Steven Greene. As Duo Pianists, they won First Prize in the Westchester Conservatory Chamber Music Competition and were Semi-Finalists in the Murray Dranoff International Two Piano Competition. They have been featured soloists in the Mozart Concerto for Two Pianos with several orchestras, and regularly perform in concert together around the Chicago area. Originally from New York and New Jersey, they now reside in Illinois, and have three children, Stefanie, Sarah and Scott Greene, all three of whom are prize-winning, aspiring professional musicians, who themselves have already performed in Carnegie Hall and soloed with orchestras.

Internationally acclaimed pianist and Steinway Artist, Susan Merdinger, is a First Prize Winner of the 2012 Bradshaw and Buono International Piano Competition, and a winner of the 1986 Artists International Young Musicians Competition, the 1990 Artists International Alumni Winners Prize, the 1990 Dewar’s Young Artists Award in Music, the 2011 IBLA Grand Prize Competition “Special Liszt Award”, the 2009 Masterplayers International Music Competition. Merdinger performs as a soloist with orchestras and as a collaborative pianist with principal members of the New York Philharmonic, the New Jersey Symphony, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and is a Guest Artist on the CSO Chamber Music Series at the Art Institute. She has appeared live on WQXR, WFMT, Connecticut Public Radio, Belgian National Radio, BBC Television and in major concert halls such as Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Diligentia Hall in the Hague, Henry Wood Concert Hall in Scotland’s National Orchestra Center, Ravinia’s Bennett Gordon Hall, the Preston Bradley Hall at the Chicago Cultural Center and Fullerton Hall at the Art Institute of Chicago. A strong advocate for new music, Merdinger has premiered and promoted the works of many contemporary composers such as Morton Gould, Ilya Levinson, Elbio Barilari, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Augusta Read Thomas. She has soloed under distinguished conductors such as Glenn Cortese, Sandra Dackow, Ari Rudiakov, Ron Arden, Anatol Lysenka, Marvin von Deck, and Barry Hoffman. Ms. Merdinger served as Music Director for the Unitarian Society of Ridgewood, NJ, and is also the Founder and Music Director for Sheridan Solisti. Merdinger received her formal education at Yale University, the Yale School of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, the Westchester Conservatory of Music, the Ecole Normale de Musique in Fontainebleau, France. Her teachers have included such luminaries as Constance Keene, Claude Frank, Ward Davenny, Ozan Marsh and Gaby Casadesus. Ms. Merdinger is on the Piano Faculties of the New Music School of Chicago, Summit Music Festival in New York, Burgos International Music Festival in Spain, and the Fine Arts Society Music Festival in Indiana.

Steven Greene is a graduate of Amherst College, where he majored in Music and Economics, garnering the Sylvia and Irving Lerner Prize and the Lincoln Lowell Russell Prize. He toured the world with the Amherst Glee Club as their Accompanist and Assistant Musical Director, and also served as the Concertmaster of the Amherst Symphony Orchestra. Briefly considering a career in choral conducting and opera, Mr. Greene instead chose to continue his studies at the Yale School of Music, earning his M.M. in Piano Performance. It was there that he met Susan Merdinger, and formed the Merdinger– Greene Piano Duo. A review of their first concert by the New Haven Register declared that they “performed with charm, sensitivity, and bravado”, and “the playing sparkled and revealed unusual maturity and a considerable range of pianistic technique”. In addition to performing as a duo-pianist with Susan, both in recital and with orchestra, he was also the Organist and Assistant Music Director for the Alpine Community Church in New Jersey for ten years, working with the venerable Merrill Staton. He has performed solo organ and piano recitals in prestigious churches and venues such as Grace Church in New York City, and performs with the choral group Mastersingers USA, and as a violinist with the Highland Park Strings. Mr. Greene's principal piano teachers were Noel Tipton, Robert Miller and Donald Currier. Mr. Greene also continued studies at Northwestern University and Indiana University.