Charlie Albright (; born ) is an American pianist and composer. He is an official Steinway Artist, 2014 Avery Fisher Career Grant Recipient, 2010 Gilmore Young Artist, former Young Concert Artist, and 2026 Centralia College Distinguished Alumni Award recipient. He graduated from Harvard College (AB) and the New England Conservatory (MM) as the first classical pianist in the schools' five-year AB/MM Joint Program, was named the Leverett House Artist in Residence for 2011–2012, and was one of the 15 Most Interesting Seniors of the Harvard College Class of 2011. He graduated from the Juilliard School of Music with his post-graduate Artist Diploma (AD) in 2014.
Albright is a frequent collaborator with Yo-Yo Ma. Albright lives in Seattle and in New York City.
Childhood Albright was born in the U.S. Army hospital within Fort Lewis, near Tacoma, Washington. His mother, Hyesoo, was a computer database specialist who was born in Seoul, and his father, Jeff Albright, was a U.S. Navy serviceman; the two married in Korea and then settled in Washington. Albright was born and his family moved to Centralia where he was raised. Albright has a younger sister named Lillian. Albright says he began to play the piano at age three-and-a-half, starting with "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" played by ear. From the age of four he appeared on state and national television. He began formal training in 1996, studying with Nancy Adsit of Olympia, Washington.
During his years with Adsit, Albright was selected five times as an Olympia Chapter representative to the Washington State Music Teachers Convention (WSMTA) and received a Beaux Arts Society scholarship. In 1998, he made his orchestral debut with the University of Puget Sound symphony. In 2000, he won prizes at the Central Washington University Sonatina/Sonata Festival and won the Olympia Chapter Concerto Festival, which led to a guest artist appearance with the Capital Area Youth Symphony in 2001.
Continuing to develop his performance career, Albright performed as part of the "Wonder Kids" concert in the Elsinore Piano Series in Salem, Oregon, in 2001 and performed in a concert with Tanya Stambuk of the University of Puget Sound the following January. Other performances throughout Washington included solo debuts with the Olympia Symphony Orchestra and the Seattle Philharmonic in 2002.
Albright's success continued as a prizewinner in the Northwest Chopin Festival on February 1, 2003, and first prize winner in the 2003 Washington State MTNA Senior Piano Competition. Other concerts that year included appearances on the Steinway Young Artists Series in Seattle, and a guest artist appearance with the Port Angeles Symphony in Port Angeles, Washington.
High school/early college Albright attended Centralia High School, where he graduated in 2007. He also attended Centralia College as part of the Running Start Program, earning his Associate of Science Degree with Highest Honors in 2007.
2004 At age 15, Albright was selected as the youngest pianist in the Young Artist program of the 2004 TCU/Cliburn Piano Institute in Fort Worth, Texas. Additionally, he won the Washington State MTNA Senior Piano Competition a second time, the Northwest Division MTNA Senior Piano Competition in Missoula, Montana, and the Olympia Music Teachers Association Concerto Competition.
2005 Albright was among the five winners in his division at the Northwest Chopin Competition held in February 2005. He played in the festival's Prizewinners' Concert at the Community Concerts Series in Centralia, Washington, and a concert with the Northwest Wind Symphony.
Albright was the First Prize winner in the 2005 International Institute for Young Musicians (IIYM) International Piano Competition in Lawrence, Kansas.
2006 Albright won Second Prize in the 2006 Schimmel Senior International Piano Competition in Tempe, Arizona.
In June, he was the first pianist ever to win both the Solo and Ensemble Divisions of the 2006 New York Biennial National Piano Competition in New York, New York.
In August, he won first prize and all other prizes in the 2006 Eastman Young Artists' International Piano Competition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Other prizes included the "Audience Prize," the "Best Performance in a Master Class" prize, and the "Best Performance of a 21st Century Work" prize.
Albright won the 2006 Washington State MTNA Senior Piano Competition for the fourth time, in November. He won in his age group at the Chopin Northwest competition.
Albright gave a concert at the 5-year memorial of the 9/11/01 World Trade Center Attacks at New York's Trinity Church, a concert with the Metropolitan Opera Chamber Ensemble, and other concerts in Washington, D.C. and Massachusetts.
2007 Albright was the youngest participant in the 2007 Hilton Head International Piano Competition held in South Carolina, where he placed third.
College/graduate school career Albright was the first classical pianist in the Harvard/New England Conservatory 5-Year BA/MM Joint Program, where he received a bachelor's degree in economics and completed a pre-medical curriculum at Harvard College (Class of 2011). He was also simultaneously a Master of Music student in Piano Performance at the New England Conservatory of Music (Class of 2012). He was named the Harvard University Leverett House Artist in Residence for 2011–2012. He also played upwards of 77 concerts worldwide per year while in college. In addition to piano, he pursued his business and finance interests while working on Wall Street.
2008 Albright won the 2007-2008 Harvard Bach Society Orchestra Competition as a freshman and performed the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto, No. 1 with the group in February 2008.
During the summer, he competed in the 2008 Sydney International Piano Competition in Sydney, Australia, where he finished as a semi-finalist and won the category for playing a Franz Liszt study piece (étude), and was given a prize for the "Best Performance of a 21st Century Work in Stage 1."
2009 In February, Albright competed in the IV Minnesota International Piano-e-Competition, performing at a piano salon in New York City. Albright competed at the Top of the World International Piano Competition in Norway in June 2009, where he competed through the semi-final round. He competed in the Vendome Prize International Piano Competition in Vienna and, though he was not selected among the top five finishers, he was given a special award by pianist and jury member Elisabeth Leonskaja.
In October, Albright gave a concert and taught his first master class at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, as a guest artist for the Sanford Piano Series.
Albright was one of four winners of the 2009 Young Concert Artists International Auditions where he won the Paul A. Fish First Prize, the Ruth Laredo Award, the Sander Buchman Prize, the Ronald A. Asherson Prize, and the Sander Buchman Prize, as well as four performance prizes.
Albright performed approximately 28 times in the 2009-2010 Concert Season. Concert venues included those in Paris, Los Angeles, Boston, Michigan, and New York. In November 2009 Albright received the 2010 Gilmore Young Artist Award, given to two pianists biannually. Albright was granted $15,000 with an additional $10,000 for the commissioning of a new composition for piano.
He gave six concerts as a 2010 Gilmore Young Artist at the 2010 Gilmore Keyboard Festival in Michigan, where he received a review describing his playing as "Poetry in motion... with flair as well as fireworks... Maturity might be a given for a Gilmore Young Artist. But Albright's professional polish was evident, not simply in the way he played the piece, but in the manner he played with the orchestra, as opposed to against or merely alongside it." The review concluded that "This college kid... is going places in music," and that "In Royce Auditorium on Thursday, Albright was number one all the way."
2010 In Salt Lake City in June, Albright competed in the XV Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, but he was not among the six finalists. On July 22, 2010, Albright made his San Francisco Symphony debut with the Duke Ellington "New World A-Comin'" with conductor Alondra de la Parra. He ended with an encore of Liszt's La Campanella to a standing ovation.
Albright made his Seattle Symphony debut with the Beethoven Piano Concerto, No. 3 with conductor Gerard Schwarz on September 10, 2010.
Performances in Albright's 2010-2011 Concert Season also included concerts in Boston (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall with the Longwood Symphony Orchestra), New York (Merkin Concert Hall), and Washington, D.C. (John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts). He also gave master classes throughout the country.
After Albright's debut at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on February 14, 2011, The Washington Post wrote that "Albright is among the most gifted musicians of his generation." It continued that "An impressive range of differently colored sounds at the keyboard was matched by overwhelming virtuosity" and that Albright "leapt the most outrageous technical hurdles... with a sense of dangerous self-abandon that was thrilling to hear. At the same time, musical shape was never sacrificed to showmanship."
Albright was named the Harvard University Leverett House Artist in Residence for 2011-2012. Previous Artists in Residence at Leverett have included the likes of cellist Yo-Yo Ma (1979–1981). In December 2010, he was named one of the 15 Most Interesting Seniors of the Harvard College Class of 2011.
2011 On May 26, 2011, Albright graduated from Harvard College with a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in economics.
Albright released his first commercial album, Vivace, in February 2011.
In June, 2011, Albright was accepted to the roster of Steinway Artists.
Albright was the first Artist-in-Residence of the 2011-2012 season of American Public Media's Performance Today, hosted by Fred Child. As such, he gave a weeklong series of performances and interviews for the national radio program.
2012 On May 20, 2012, Albright graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music with a Master of Music (M.M.) degree in Piano Performance, having studied under Wha-Kyung Byun. He traveled to Spain to compete in the Paloma O'Shea Santander International Piano Competition, but he did not move past the first round. He was accepted as one of three pianists to the Juilliard School of Music's Artist Diploma (AD) program, where he studies with Yoheved Kaplinsky.
2013 In 2013, Albright was named the recipient of the Arthur W. Foote Award of the Harvard Musical Association in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Albright was invited to give three All-Schubert solo concerts at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 2013, to which the Boston Musical Intelligencer wrote that the pianist was "unsurpassed" and "on the top tier." The author continued by writing that "It was gripping, frankly, both spellbinding and spellbound, quite unlike most such solo recitals I've heard over the decades."
The second of the three Schubert-cycle concerts at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was met with praise, with reviews hailing that "Albright is a born Schubert player. Albright has the requisite chops of a competition winner, but the beauty, sensitivity, and taste of a mature artist. His Schubert was ravishing, imaginative, poetic—full of poignancy and lyricism. His interpretation sounded spontaneous, but this was also heartfelt, mature playing. Everything had been thought out by a mind brimming with musical intelligence."
2014