Benjamin Dominguez

Full Biography.

With a heart for reaching others through the art of music, pianist Benjamin Dominguez is a dedicated musician, performing artist, and pedagogue. Having studied the piano for over two-thirds of his life, Benjamin continues to cultivate the passion that he received from his many teachers and endeavors to communicate the vibrancy of music to his audiences and students. At the University of Kansas under the guidance of the chair of piano Dr. Jack Winerock, Benjamin won many piano competitions and awards, culminating in the 2018 Presser Scholar Award and Scholarship granted by the KU School of Music faculty for outstanding achievement in music and academics. As a freshman, he performed twice with the KC Symphony and conductor Michael Stern at the Kauffman Center for the Arts. In 2017, he won the grand prize at the national Naftzger Young Artists Audition as well as joint first prize in the KU Concerto Competition, performing with conductor Jung-Ho Pak and the KU Symphony Orchestra. Most recently, he was the grand prize winner of the 2020 National MTNA Young Artist Piano Competition, presenting a virtual recital as part of the annual national conference.

Benjamin has participated in masterclasses and lessons with highly acclaimed artists such as Leon Fleisher, Yo-Yo Ma, Julian Martin, Tang Zhe, Martin Katz, Robert McDonald, Jon Nakamatsu, Boris Slutsky, Matti Raekallio, Yong-Hi Moon and many others. In the summer of 2018, he attended the Chautauqua Piano Festival held at the Chautauqua Institution in New York, and in the summer of 2019, he attended the Art of the Piano festival in Cincinnati as well as the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine as part of their highly esteemed Piano Fellowship Program, both with full scholarship.

Benjamin’s musical interests lie not only in the standard classical repertoire, but also in searching out great underperformed works of the 20th and 21st centuries. By invitation, he performed two suites of chamber music by Erik Moe and Ramon Lazkano (both living composers) for the 2019 Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music held in Maine. Just before the pandemic, Benjamin presented a two-piano recital with his wife, pianist Mai Li, dedicated entirely to Francis Poulenc’s complete works for two pianos. He regularly seeks to provide audiences with inventive programming featuring contemporary music in his recitals by composers such as Elliot Carter, George Rochberg, Stephen Hough, etc. alongside the classics.

As a performer, Benjamin has been highly active both in solo and collaborative performances throughout the United States, especially in Pennsylvania, Kansas, New York, and Maine. Recently, Benjamin performed alongside Emanuel Ax as part of the Lincoln Center’s Restart Stages, a performance initiative to revivify the live performing arts in NYC following the worst of the pandemic. Benjamin has had opportunities to collaborate with world-renowned cellists Yehuda Hanani, David Ying, and Michael Landschoot. In 2018, he gave a series of guest artist recitals throughout Kansas with Uzbek cellist Sunnat Ibrahim, and again in early 2020, Benjamin and Sunnat participated in a Kansas City recital of Beethoven’s complete cello repertoire to celebrate Beethoven’s 250th anniversary. As a group, they have performed multiple times on Kansas Public Radio, including a re-broadcast of a program recorded in 2018 as part of the Ruel Joyce Recital Series.

As a teacher, Benjamin has had many years of experience teaching piano at the University of Kansas as part of the Pianos Without Borders program in affiliation with the Yamaha Disklavier, as well as private teaching in Pennsylvania and Flushing, NY. He is an active member of the Music Teachers National Association.

The pandemic has given Benjamin a great deal of time to focus on what he loves: learning new repertoire, reading great literature, and cooking Chinese recipes. He is currently pursuing his Masters Degree at the Juilliard School of Music studying under Mr. Julian Martin.