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John Ferguson
Pianist & Executive Director
John Ferguson currently resides in Houston, Texas and Bangkok, Thailand where he carries out his dual roles as pianist and Executive Director of American Voices Foundation. His performing activities include over one hundred concerts, broadcasts and masterclasses per year throughout Europe, North and South America, Asia and the Middle East.
John Ferguson first studied music at the High School for the Performing Arts in his hometown of Houston, Texas and completed his studies at the University of Texas at Austin where he received his Master's Diploma. Additional studies took him to Paris where he was a student of Nadia Boulanger and to Geneva where he studied with Maroussia le Marc'hadour.His piano teachers have included Danielle Martin, Eugene List and Edith Lateiner-Grosz.
In 1993, John Ferguson founded American Voices to fulfill the need for quality, constructive American cultural programming in the newly independent nations of central and eastern Europe. Since then, the focus of American Voices has expanded to include any country where a scarcity of exposure to American culture exists.
His touring schedule regularly takes him through Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. In Europe he has appeared in prestigious venues such as Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Théatre de la Ville and Radio France in Paris, and Bonn's Kunst- und Austellungshalle. Festival appearances include the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation's "Flaneries de Reims", Germany's "Altmark Musikfest" , "A(r)tlantische Tage" and "American Music Week-Bonn". Radio and television broadcasts have reached millions in countries such as Vietnam, Lebanon, Azerbaijan, Germany, France, and India to name only a few.
John Ferguson's recordings include 'Rhapsody in Blue' with the Junge Philharmonie Thüringen, 'Saxofolies' for EPM, 'Jazz Bridges' for American Voices and a solo recording, 'Variations on America' to be released in 2006.
Press Quotes:
"In the 'Blues' of George Rochberg, John Ferguson proved himself a pianist of the highest intellectual and performing rank."
General Anzeiger, Bonn
"Mr. Ferguson made each piece meaningful and alive, and made us want to know more about the composer and his other works….An example of how we Ukranians should learn to present our culture and heritage."
The Kiev Post, Ukraine
“With rain splattering in from the open sides and the leaky roof of the performance hall, American Voices director John Ferguson treated concert-goers in the central city of Hue to its first performance by an American musician since the end of the Vietnam War. Ferguson's strong solo renditions of music by Gershwin, Joplin and Charles Ives charged the audience members with enthusiasm for music forms which many of them had never before heard.”
US Consulate General, Ho Chi Minh City
"John Ferguson performed (the 'Concerto in Ragtime') with a cultivated, temperamental, intuitive Ragtime feeling; virtuosic, yet sensitive. He was not allowed to leave without offering two encores by Zez Confrey and George Gershwin…."
Harzer Volksstimme
European premiere of William Ryden's "Concerto in Ragtime"
Programs Offered:
Gershwin and Friends
Variations on America
Visionary Landscapes - Mysticism and Philosophy in 20th and 21st century America
Works with Orchestra - Rhapsody in Blue, Variations on 'I Got Rhythm', Concerto in Ragtime by William Ryden
Workshops and Masterclasses in American composers and repertoire for pianists
Seminars on American music and composers
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First Programs in Egypt
