Biography

Pauline Martin's Washington debut recital captured the Washington Post headline, Pauline Martin's Dazzling Debut.  Kenneth Townsend wrote:  "a balanced, colorful and thoroughly engrossing performance . . . rewarded by loud, sustained applause."  The Canadian born pianist continues to earn international recognition for her solo and chamber music performances and recordings, and has been the focus of several radio and television broadcasts in the U.S., Canada and Europe.


As soloist, Pauline Martin has appeared with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the New American Chamber Orchestra, the Florida West Coast Symphony and Orchestra London Canada, among others, with such conductors as Lan Shui, Thomas Wilkins, Leslie Dunner, Yves Abel, Kirk Muspratt, Paul Wolfe, Alexis Hauser, and Laszlo Gati. Her March, 2009 performance of Mozart’s Concerto K. 365 with the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra (with Zhihua Tang and conductor Charles Burke) was recorded by Chinese National Television for broadcast to an audience of over a billion viewers.


A founding member of the St. Clair Trio, Pauline earned a first-round Grammy nomination for Hobson’s Choice (works by Sir Malcolm Arnold, Koch International Classics) and a Chamber Music America-WQXR/FM award for Old Acquaintances (works by Franz Waxman), given to outstanding new releases of 2000.  Martin has also collaborated with violinists Itamar Zorman, James Ehnes, Andrés Cárdenes, Scott St. John, Timothy Braun, Aaron Berofsky, Emmanuelle Boisvert, Yoonshin Song and Yehonatan Berick; violists Sharon Wei, Jean-Baptiste Aguessy and Kathryn Votapek; flutists Bonita Boyd and Amy Porter; cellists Edward Arron, Robert deMaine, Erik Ásgeirsson and Thomas Wiebe; clarinetist Nicolai Pfeffer, hornist Eric Ruske and oboist Nancy Ambrose King.  She has served as Artistic Director of Chamber Soloists of Detroit since 2012.


Pauline has been featured as soloist and chamber musician at a host of regional and international festivals, including the Ann Arbor, Sarasota, Summer Serenades (Rockville, Maryland), Grove (MI), Mackinac Island, Detroit Symphony Tchaikovsky and Meadowbrook Music Festivals, the Aria International Summer Music Academy, Winter Days Festival of Scandinavia, as well as in several Irving S. Gilmore Foundation Educational programs. 


Her diversity in standard through contemporary repertoire is represented on the recent Naxos American Classics’ CD Imaginary Creatures (works by James Hartway) and Postcard from Europe with clarinetist George Stoffan, with world premieres drawing kudos from composers George Crumb, Leslie Bassett, Sir Malcolm Arnold, Susan Botti, Gary Schocker, James Hartway, Lawrence Singer and others.


Pauline has served as a faculty member at Michigan State, Wayne State and Oakland Universities and as Assistant Instructor at Indiana University, completing Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees with Menahem Pressler, and the University of Michigan, where she earned a Doctorate of Musical Arts under the tutelage of Gary Graffman, Theodore Lettvin and former Artist in Residence Andre Watts.  She has performed and lectured to the academic community in Canada and the American Midwest, including the Music Teachers’ Association State Conventions of Michigan and South Dakota, the American Association of University Women and the Michigan Federation of Music Teachers, for which she regularly serves as judge at the local, state and division levels. Her seminars on such topics as Peak Performance and Elements of Style share practical insights drawn from a lifetime of experience in performance and teaching.  She celebrates the achievements of her students as competition winners, recitalists, concerto soloists, festival participants, recording artists and teachers.


Pauline Martin is a Steinway Artist