Anton Nel (born December 29, 1961) is a South African classical

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

Biography

Nel was born to

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...

-speaking parents in

Johannesburg, South Africa Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a Megacity#List of megacities, megacity, and is List of urban areas by p ...

. Nel made his debut at the age of twelve with Beethoven's C Major Concerto after only two years of study. A student of

Adolph Hallis Adolph Hallis (4 July 1896 – 1987) was a South African pianist, composer and teacher. Life Hallis was born in Port Elizabeth, Cape Colony and travelled to England in his twenties, where he studied at the Royal Academy of Music; his teachers ...

, he went on to win top honors in several South African national competitions while still in his teens, toured his native country extensively and became a well-known radio and television personality. Nel graduated from the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( or ). The university ...

in Johannesburg in 1982. He came to the U.S. in 1983, attending the

University of Cincinnati The University of Cincinnati (UC or Cincinnati) is a public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1819 as Cincinnati College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in Cincinnati and has an annual enrollment of over 44,0 ...

, where he pursued his master's degree and Doctoral degrees under Béla Síki and Frank Weinstock. He was appointed to the faculty of the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,07 ...

at the age of 23, followed by professorships at the

Eastman School of Music The Eastman School of Music is the music school of the University of Rochester, a private research university in Rochester, New York. It was established in 1921 by industrialist and philanthropist George Eastman. It offers Bachelor of Music ...

, and the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, where he was chairman of the piano department. In 2000 Nel was appointed as the Priscilla Pond Flawn Regents Professor of Piano and Chamber music at the University of Texas at Austin, where he heads the Division of Keyboard Studies. In 2010 he became the first holder of the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Endowed Chair in Piano. Nel was winner of the first prize in the 1987

Naumburg International Piano Competition The Naumburg International Piano Competition is the name given to all the piano competitions sponsored by the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation. It is a competition for young pianists, of ages 17 to 32, organized in New York City, United States since ...

at Carnegie Hall. He also won several first prizes at the Joanna Hodges International Piano Competition in

Palm Desert Palm Desert is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, in the Coachella Valley, approximately east of Palm Springs, northeast of San Diego and east of Los Angeles. The population was 48,445 at the 2010 census. The city has been ...

in 1986. An acclaimed

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

interpreter, Nel has performed the concerto cycle several times, most notably on two consecutive evenings with the Cape Philharmonic in 2003. He has performed with the

Cleveland Orchestra The Cleveland Orchestra, based in Cleveland, is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the " Big Five". Founded in 1918 by the pianist and impresario Adella Prentiss Hughes, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Se ...

, the symphonies of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

, and

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, among many others. Nel has an active repertoire of more than 100 works for piano and orchestra, including the newly discovered Piano Concerto No. 3 in E Minor by Felix Mendelssohn of which he gave the North American premiere in 1997. Nel has three solo CDs as well as several chamber music recordings to his credit. Recent releases include "Anton Nel in Recital", as well as the complete Beethoven Sonatas and Variations for Piano and Cello, and Brahms Sonatas and Hungarian Dances (with Bion Tsang) by Artek Recordings (with distribution by Naxos) and his performances of the Fauré Ballade and Franck Symphonic Variations with the Philharmonia Virtuosi, on the ESS.A.Y label.

Personal

Nel became a U.S. citizen in 2003.

External links

Anton Nel - University of Texas at Austin

Austin American-Statesman, March 26, 2009 {{DEFAULTSORT:Nel, Anton Classical music in South Africa Living people American classical pianists Male classical pianists American male pianists Texas classical music 1961 births University of Michigan faculty 20th-century American pianists 21st-century classical pianists 20th-century American male musicians 21st-century American male musicians 21st-century American pianists