
Elizabeth Schumann performs internationally as a recitalist, chamber musician, and concerto soloist. The Washington Post Magazine noted her playing as "deft, relentless, and devastatingly good—the sort of performance you experience not so much with your ears as your solar plexus."
The first place winner of both the Bösendorfer International Piano Competition and the Pacific International Piano Competition, Elizabeth has won several prizes and awards in other major national and international competitions, including the Cleveland International Piano Competition and the Hilton Head International Piano Competition. Elizabeth was honored with the prestigious Gilmore Young Artists Award, and was highlighted in a PBS Television documentary on the Gilmore Festival.
She has performed solo recitals and chamber music concerts worldwide, in such venues as the Kennedy Center, Vienna's Bösendorfer Saal, Toronto's Koerner Hall, the International UNICEF benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina Victims, the New Hampshire Music Festival, the Gilmore Festival, Australia's Huntington Festival, the Musica Viva chamber music series, the Ravinia "Rising Stars" Series, New York City's "Rock Hotel Pianofest" Series, Montreal's Place des Arts, National Public Radio's "Performance Today," and "Sundays Live" radio broadcast program in Los Angeles. Her recitals have been broadcast live on public radio and television in cities around the world, including Washington D.C., New York, Sydney, Cleveland, Montréal, Dallas, and Chicago.
Fascinated with contemporary music, Elizabeth is a frequent performer of 21st century works, most recently performing the World Premiere of award winning Canadian Composer Hugues Leclair's American Haikus (2010). After commissioning Australian Composer Carl Vine to write his Piano Sonata No. 3, she gave the continental premiere performances of the piece in America, Europe, Africa, and Australia.
Passionate about creating public access to the arts, Elizabeth founded Piano Theatre, an artist group formed to engage audiences with innovative combinations of classical music, theatre, literature, art and technology. Piano Theatre's recent tours of the US, Canada and Australia were acclaimed by critics and audiences alike. In 2011, concerned with the declining funding for arts education in the United States, Elizabeth devised and directed Piano Carnival, a project to introduce free, high quality classical concert music to children in areas without arts education.
In 2012, Elizabeth became president of Project Classical, Inc.¸ a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support artist led initiatives that encourage public education and appreciation of classical music, art and literature.