Yefim Bronfman to Hold the Neubauer Family Chair in Piano Studies

The Curtis Institute of Music is pleased to announce that famed pianist and current faculty member Yefim Bronfman (Piano ’78) now holds the Neubauer Family Chair in Piano Studies.

A much-revered soloist, Yefim “Fima” Bronfman joined the Curtis faculty in fall 2020 and was a student at the school in the late 1970s.

“We are thrilled to celebrate the incredible work of Fima Bronfman in this way,” said Curtis president and CEO Roberto Díaz. “We are so lucky to have an artist like Fima to work with our students. Not only will he be a consistent, long-term mentor to our students, but his career stands as a great example to which they can aspire.”

Internationally recognized as one of today’s most acclaimed and admired pianists, Yefim Bronfman is an artist regularly sought by the world’s leading orchestras, recital series, and festivals. His performances are consistently lauded by the press and audiences alike. Fima will appear with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra this April in Verizon Hall as the soloist in Bartók’s Second Piano Concerto, under the baton of Robert Spano (Conducting ’85). This concert is one component of Curtis’s celebration of the school’s keyboard programs in the spring 2022 semester.

Born in Tashkent in the Soviet Union, Fima immigrated to Israel with his family in 1973, where he studied with pianist Arie Vardi, head of the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University. In the United States, he studied at the Juilliard School, Marlboro School of Music, and the Curtis Institute of Music, under Rudolf Firkusny, Leon Fleisher, and Rudolf Serkin. A recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize, one of the highest honors given to American instrumentalists, he received the Jean Gimbel Lane prize in piano performance from Northwestern University in 2010 and an honorary doctorate in 2015 from the Manhattan School of Music.

Curtis is extremely grateful to Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer and Joe Neubauer for their generous support of this named chair. The prestigious endowed chairs at Curtis—such as the Neubauer Family Chair in Piano Studies—honor the school’s enduring legacy, and ensure the consistency and excellence of the faculty and studio for generations to come.