Scroll Top
65 Briarwood Circle Worcester, MA 01606

Pianist MacKenzie Melemed Returns to Briarwood

Pianist MacKenzie Melemed will perform a concert at The Briarwood Community on Friday, April 7th at 1:00 p.m. in the Loring (Birches) Auditorium.  The twenty-two-year-old pianist has performed over 600 concerts for audiences around the world and recently won the First Prize and Commissioned Work Performance Prize at the 9th Iowa International Piano Competition in Sioux City, IA. The competition was held from March 9 – 12, 2017, and featured 11 competitors chosen from nearly 100 applications. Melemed was the first American competitor to win the competition since the first competition in 2005. Melemed was also the youngest competitor in the competition.

Mr. Melemed has a long history of performances at Briarwood and recently he cited the Community as one of his favored places to perform.  Additional information from his website www.mackenziemelemed.com:

His first contact with the piano was at the age of four and he quickly developed a passion for music. He began performing local concerts for senior citizens, charitable organizations and at local schools, where he encouraged students to share their talents within their communities. At the age of eight, Melemed portrayed the young Mozart in the Discovery Channel series “Medical Mystery.” In 2004, Melemed performed for President George Bush at a fundraiser in Boston, and subsequently was invited to perform for five years at The White House. In the summer of 2004, Melemed gave sixty appearances at the Tropicana Resort in Atlantic City in the show “Prodigy.”

Mr. Melemed began formal classical training in 2005, and won the grand prize at the Bradshaw and Buono International Piano Competition, resulting in a debut performance at Weill Recital Hall, only a year later. Melemed was the only child to be named an “Everyday Hero” by Anna Maria College in Massachusetts. Melemed is a past recipient of the ASCAP Irving Berlin Summer Camp Scholarship, and performed at the awards ceremony at Lincoln Center. Melemed has appeared twice on the PBS television/radio program “From the Top.”  In 2009, Melemed gave his orchestral debut with The Boston Civic Symphony.

Mr. Melemed was the featured performer at the unveiling of the “American Wing” at the MFA in Boston. In the summer of 2012, Mr. Melemed won the Special Prize for the Best Performance of Required Commissioned Etudes written by Avner Dorman at The New York International Piano Competition. He also won the 5th prize at the 2012 Gina Bachauer International Young Artists Piano Competition, where he was the highest ranking competitor from the United States.

In the summer of 2013, Mr. Melemed toured the Czech Republic and gave performances in China. Mr. Melemed won the 1st Prize at the 18th Hamamatsu International Piano Academy Competition in 2014, and was the only participant from the United States. Mr. Melemed won the 2016 Juilliard School Gina Bachauer Competition, and is currently receiving a full-tuition scholarship for the 2016-17 year. Melemed also won a prize in the Mieczysław Munz Competition at The Juilliard School this past March.