BYRON SCHENKMAN was voted “Best Classical Instrumentalist” by the readers of the Seattle Weekly in 2006. He performs as a solo pianist, chamber musician, and as harpsichordist with the Seattle Baroque Orchestra. A recipient of the Erwin Bodky Award from the Cambridge Society for Early Music, Schenkman has recorded more than thirty CDs of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century repertoire, including recordings on original instruments from the National Music Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.   As a pianist he has been a featured guest with the Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston, the Daedalus Quartet, the Northwest Symphonietta, and Philharmonia Northwest. He has played solo piano recitals in Boston, New York, Peterborough (NH), Portland (OR), Seattle, Vancouver, Winston-Salem, and on a Chilean tour sponsored by Partners of the Americas. His CD of Haydn sonatas on modern piano (CRC 2806) has been acclaimed for its “elegance, wit, and refinement” (American Record Guide), “imaginative, cleanly articulated form” (Seattle Times), and “astonishing sense of humor” (All Music Guide). In 2009 he participated in the Haydn and Mendelssohn bicentennial celebrations with performances at the Frick Collection in New York and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.  

Schenkman is a graduate of the New England Conservatory and received the Master of Music degree with honors in performance from the Indiana University School of Music. He is currently an adjunct instructor of piano and harpsichord at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.