TRIUMPHANT HEROES
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Alexander Aylward
Mr. Aylward famed pianist sang in Greater Buffalo area choirs early on. He regularly appears as piano soloist with Ars Nova Musicians Orchestra in Buffalo.
Alexander Aylward (above photo) on June 2, 2020 was coronated as BC’s piano playing legend in Tchaikovsky BC Symphony Performance. In the time since Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky completed his first piano concerto, the work has become cemented as a quintessential piece in many pianists repertoire. Like the quadruple axel in figure skating, or the skateboarder’s coveted 900, performing Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto in public is a daunting task, reserved only for true experts. Those who congregated in Gasson 100 bore witness to an exhibition of greatness.
Hailed by the Buffalo News for his “debonair” artistry and “fine instinct for the music,” pianist Alexander Aylward is an Honors Program senior in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences. He has performed as soloist with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Music Director JoAnn Falletta. Mr. Aylward’s teachers include Mr. Max Levinson—Chair of the Piano Department at Boston Conservatory and faculty member at New England Conservatory of Music—Ms. Elisabeth Pridonoff—Emerita
Professor of Piano at the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music—and Mrs. Phyllis East—Emerita Professor of Piano at the State University of New York at Fredonia.
Mr. Aylward majored in Philosophy and Classics—the languages and literatures of Ancient Greece and Rome—focusing on the epic poetry of Homer and Vergil, the Tragic Drama of Sophocles, and the Metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle. Mr. Aylward’s course in Philosophy has proceeded almost exclusively at the graduate level, centering on the revolutionary work of Jacques Derrida and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences Dean named Mr. Aylward the 2016 Dean’s Scholar and the 2015 Sophomore Scholar.
Performing the great piano concerti of Sebastian Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, Mr. Aylward regularly appears as soloist with Ars Nova Musicians Orchestra in Buffalo, directed by Buffalo Philharmonic first-
violinist Marylouise Nanna. His recent November 2016 performance as soloist with Ars Nova in Beethoven’s mighty Emperor Piano Concerto No. 5 garnered critical acclaim in the Buffalo News.