Robert Herschel Silverman, CM, born May 25, 1938, in Montreal is a noted Canadian pianist and piano pedagogue.
In 1998 he became the inaugural recipient of the Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award of the Ontario Arts Foundation.
[2] His widely acclaimed 10-CD recording of all thirty-two Beethoven sonatas was short-listed for a Juno Award for Best Classical Album: Solo or Chamber Ensemble.
He has commented on this very belated beginning, almost unheard of for a pianist of his high standing and accomplishments, in an interview with Marsha Lederman of the Globe and Mail in 2008.
[7] Returning to North America, he studied with Dorothy Morton at McGill University and with Cécile Staub Genhart[8] at the Eastman School of Music.
[1] In 1970 he won the Allied Arts Piano Competition in Chicago,[10] earning him a recital debut in Orchestra Hall.
After a 1984 London recital, the critic Bryce Morrison described him as 'a player of formidable strength and mastery... his tonal resources are wonderfully rich and full... Silverman's magisterial command of both technique and idiom could hardly have been more convincing... here is a powerful, highly skilled orator of the keyboard, attributes not to be taken lightly in an age of so much impersonal expertise' [11]).
[13] 'Many aspects of Silverman's playing are frequently noted: a polished technique, an extraordinary range of tonal palette, an uncanny ability to sing his way into the heart of a phrase, and probing interpretations of the most complex works in the repertoire.
He has played under the batons of Seiji Ozawa, John Eliot Gardiner, Zdenek Macal, Gerard Schwarz, Neeme Järvi, the late Kiril Kondrashin and Sergiu Comissiona.
1967)), Alexina Louie’s Piano Concerto (1985) with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, Hétu's Sonata (1986) and Keith Hamel's Thrust.