Southern Methodist University

“She created transfixing poetry.” (The Washington Post): Pianist Sara Daneshpour has worldwide audiences and critics spellbound with her “blazing technique, power, expressivity, imagination and stage presence” (The New York Concert Review), establishing herself as one of the most refined artists of her generation.

Highlights of past and coming seasons for Sara include performances with the Israel Camerata and Israel Philharmonic, Mariinsky Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Catskill Symphony, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and Britt Festival Orchestra.

Sara Daneshpour has appeared in solo recitals at the Southbank Centre in London, the Musée d’Orsay, Salle Cortot, Mazzoleni Concert Hall in Toronto, the Copenhagen Summer Festival, the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, San Francisco Chamber Music, Mariinsky International Piano Festival in St. Petersburg, and the International Keyboard Festival in New York.

In orchestra concerts and solo recitals, Sara Daneshpour stuns audiences with an unusually wide repertoire ranging from Bach to Boulez, with her dazzling technique and an exceptional level of artistic depth and sincerity. Her performances, described as “a powerhouse account, producing enough tone for two pianists in the process” (Baltimore Sun), are critically acclaimed as lavishing “colour on oft-neglected lines, illuminating subtle beauties” (The

New York Concert Review). Her current solo programme of Études by Chopin and Ligeti combines two of the most intriguing and most demanding works ever written for the piano.

Ms. Daneshpour has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Germany, Russia, Finland, France, Sweden, Spain, Israel, and Japan. She has been heard at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, Carnegie Hall in New York and at the Great Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow.

Sara Daneshpour is the third prize winner of the 2017 Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition, the 2014 prize winner at the Seoul International Music Competition in Seoul, and 2013 Laureate of the ProLiance Energy Classical Fellowship Awards of the American Pianists Association. She won the first prize of the XII Concours International de Musique du Maroc, second prize of the 2007 William Kapell International Piano Competition, and first prize and gold medal of the 2007 International Russian Music Piano Competition.

Born in Washington, DC, into an Iranian-American family, Sara Daneshpour has studied under the direction of Leon Fleisher at the Curtis Institute of Music, with Yoheved Kaplinsky and Oleg Volkov at the Juilliard School, and with Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Ms. Daneshpour joined the artist faculty at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music as Assistant Professor of Piano in 2023 and has joined the faculty of the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, in 2025.