Salomón Gadles Mikowsky

Pianist and pedagogue. He has been a professor of piano at Manhattan School of Music in New York for more than 30 years, as well as at Chicago College of Performing Arts.

He was born in La Habana, Cuba, on March 10, 1936. He studied music in Cuba between 1944 and 1955: with Luis Pastoret, music theory; Argeliers León, theory, and César Pérez Sentenat, piano. In 1955 he moved to New York, where he studied with Cuban pianist Santos Ojeda.

In 1956 he received a scholarship from Juilliard School to continue his studies with the eminent pianist Sascha Gorodnitzki, principal disciple and greatest exponent of the Russian school of the legendary virtuoso Josef Lhevinne.

He complemented his studies in piano, theory and musical analysis with Vincent Persicheti; chamber music with Louis Persinger; orchestra conducting with Jorge Mester, as well as violin, clarinet, trumpet and organ with Vernon de Tar and Thomas Richner.

In 1961 he graduated from Juilliard with a Bachelor's degree and Master of Science.

In 1967 he entered Columbia University to pursue a doctorate in music, which he completed in 1973, with Bachelor Degree and Master Degree titles, and later received his doctorate in music from the same university, with the thesis The Origins and Development of Cuban Dance in the 19th Century and its most prominent figure, Ignacio Cervantes.

As a pianist, he conducted several concert tours throughout the United States and Latin America. In 2001 he participated as a panelist at Carnegie Hall in the American Composers Orchestra concert in homage to Nicholas Slonimsky, where he lectured on La rebambaramba, by Amadeo Roldán.

He is frequently invited to serve on the juries of the most prestigious international competitions, and has taught courses at the leading conservatories of:
Moscow
Saint Petersburg
Warsaw
Krakow
Budapest
London
Paris
Rotterdam
Madrid
Valencia
Tel-Aviv
Jerusalem
Istanbul
Australia and throughout the Far East.

Contributions

He established himself in New York, where he developed his teaching work at:
New York Columbia University
Juilliard
The Philadelphia University of Arts.

Since 1974 he has worked as a professor at Manhattan School of Music. In 1987, under the sponsorship of cultural exchange between China and the United States, he was invited to teach advanced courses at the conservatories of Shanghai, Xi'an and Beijing. He has also taught master classes at:
The Hochschule für Musik, in Munich, Germany
Royale in London, England
At the Royal Conservatories of Madrid and Valencia, Spain
The Chaikovsky in Moscow and the Rimsky-Kórsakov in Saint Petersburg
Chopin Academy in Warsaw, Poland
Liszt, in Budapest, Hungary.

He participated in music festivals in:
Bologna, Arezzo, Italy
Caracas, Venezuela
Tokyo
Manila
Hong Kong
Seoul
Kang-Nung
Singapore
Taipei
Tainan
Taichung
Kaohsiung.

Since 1969 he has been a professor of piano at Manhattan School of Music and at Chicago College of Performing Arts, as well as a professor of music at Columbia University Teachers College. He has been artistic director of the International Piano Festivals.

Awards and Recognition
For his pedagogical work, he received the Cintas Prize from the International Institute of Education of the United Nations, and is included in the book The Twenty-Eight Most Outstanding Piano Teachers in the United States. His students have won awards in international competitions, such as those in:
Santander
Barcelona
Valencia
Zaragoza
Senigallia
Porto
Andorra
Cuba.

His disciples have been awarded more than one hundred times in some of the most prestigious international competitions in the world, including first prizes in:
Rubinstein in Tel-Aviv
Santander
Beethoven in Bonn
Chaikovsky
Richter in Moscow
Van Cliburn in Texas

As well as in the major competitions of:
Spain
Portugal
Italy
England
Ireland
China
Japan
United States.

In the Ignacio Cervantes Competition in La Habana, his disciples Yuan Sheng, Chinese, and Alexander Moutouzkine, Russian, received the First Prize in 2000 and the Second in 2003, respectively. The magazine Sur Exprès indicates that Mikowsky has "a magical ability to turn piano students who fall into his hands into artists". Included in the book The Most Wanted Piano Teachers in the USA, Salomón Mikowsky has received the Cintas Prize from the Institute of International Education and the Presidential Medal of Manhattan School of Music for his pedagogical contribution.