Clare Longendyke

A pianist with “an artistic ferocity that captivated and astonished listeners” (Waverly Newspapers), Clare Longendyke is a soloist, chamber musician, and musical innovator who performs with American orchestras and on recital series around the world. Recent highlights include performances of concertos by Mozart, Falla, Rachmaninoff, Florence Price, and Joan Tower with orchestras in Minnesota, Iowa, Indiana, and Virginia, and the release of her debut solo CD in 2024, …of dreams unveiled featuring works of Debussy, Amy Williams, and Anthony R. Green.

A charming and charismatic performer, Longendyke’s passion for the music she plays radiates through the way she speaks from the concert stage. She has a contagious commitment to the music of our time, and her programming celebrates works by favorite composers of the past — Robert and Clara Schumann, Beethoven, and Debussy, to name a few — while creating space for those that are paving the way towards classical music’s more inclusive future.

One of the highlights of her career has been to collaborate with living composers to commission new works. She relishes the opportunity to put her stamp on pieces of music that will go on to be staples in the pianist’s repertoire for centuries. In the last decade, she has commissioned over 30 new solo and chamber music works and been involved in over 200 world premiere performances.

Longendyke’s performance highlights include The University of Chicago Presents, The Schubert Club of Minnesota, The Ordway Center for the Performing Arts (St. Paul MN), Sandler Center for the Performing Arts (Virginia Beach VA), The Palladium (Carmel IN), and Olin Arts Center (Lewiston ME). Recent orchestral partners include Symphonicity (VA), Rochester Symphony Orchestra (MN), and Oak Ridge Symphony (TN). Her playing has also been heard on NPR’s Performance Today.​

Longendyke has lived and studied on both American coasts and abroad, earning degrees at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts and her Master’s and Doctor of Music from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

An ardent Francophile and fluent French speaker, she received the Fulbright-Harriet Hale Woolley Award in the Arts to study music at the École normale de musique in Paris in 2009. She has served as Artist-in-Residence at The University of Chicago (2019–2021) and the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana (2023–2024).

For Longendyke, performance is just one aspect of her role as an ambassador for classical music in today’s world. The connections she makes in classrooms, on concert stages, and everywhere in between help to foster a greater sense of community for the classical music field that she cares about so deeply.