Chelsea Randall presents a concert celebrating seldom performed and contemporary piano works by Black American composers, as part of her ongoing performance and commissioning project American Mavericks, dedicated to 20th and 21st century Black American composers. The pieces on the program (composed from 1974–2014) showcase a spectrum of styles, approaches and influences; from the moody and tumultuous Dream and Variations by trailblazer Dorothy Rudd Moore and the subtle jazz inflections of Guido’s Hand: Five Pieces for Piano by Pulitzer Prize-winner George Walker, to spiky works by contemporary composers Jonathan Bailey Holland and Joyce Solomon Moorman, Regina Harris Baiocchi’s heart-rending Azuretta written as a tribute to her mentor, the great Hale Smith, and the West Coast premiere of The Forest—an atmospheric reverie by emerging composer Chloe Clarke Smith, who is a Boston Conservatory composition student and Wildflower Composers alum.
Chelsea Randall is a pianist and educator based in New York City. She is a dedicated advocate of underrepresented composers and new music, and seeks to create fresh dialogues between the old, new and undiscovered as a performer and collaborator. Her eclectic programming has been featured at national and international venues including Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, The Kaufmann Center, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Yamaha Piano Salon, Steinway Hall, The Princeton Club, Mannes School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, St. Peter’s Church, Hammersmith in London, Clare College at the University of Cambridge, and Théâtre Adyar in Paris, and she has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician at the Pacific, Colby, Salluzo and Orvieto festivals, among others. Chelsea is the recipient of numerous accolades, including performance and research grants from Scuola di Alto Perfezionamento Musicale in Italy, the Allegro Festival, Conservatoire de Paris, and Live From Our Living Rooms, which culminated in a livestream recital of works by Ruth Crawford Seeger and Robert Palmer. Highlights of the 2022-2023 Season include the launch of American Mavericks, a performance and commissioning project celebrating solo piano repertoire by 20th and 21st century Black American composers, and a collaboration with kora master Malang Jobarteh, exploring interrelationships between West African music and piano works by György Ligeti, Steve Reich, Tania León and others, supported by New Music USA’s 2022 Creator Development Fund.
Chelsea is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of EXTENSITY, a new concert series in NY aiming to foster interdisciplinary connections between artistic disciplines with emphasis on underrepresented and new voices. EXTENSITY’s second season, which took place in March 2022, was dedicated to the work of living women composers. In summer 2021 Chelsea was artist in residence with EXTENSITY at The Box Factory in Ridgewood, NY.
As an educator, Chelsea has taught piano and chamber music at Third Street Music School, held teaching artist positions in New York and abroad, and currently runs Clinton Hill Piano Studio in Brooklyn. She received her musical education from New York University, The Royal College of Music in London and The Juilliard School. Her teachers and mentors included Niel Immelman, Anthony di Bonaventura and Herbert Stessin.
Chelsea is also an accomplished editor and writer, and considers her editorial and musical pursuits to be intertwined and mutually reinforcing. She has worked at presses and journals including Columbia University Press, Soft Skull Press and The New York Quarterly. Chelsea holds a degree in English from The Gallatin School of Individualized Study, NYU.