Rodolfo Faistauer
Visiting Assistant Professor of Music and Director of the Piano Area
Rodolfo Faistauer regularly performs in Europe, North America, and South America. His experience as a performer reflects his personal journey across different countries and cultures. It has enriched his understanding of diverse musical traditions and informs both his playing and his teaching.
Faistauer holds a D.M.A. from Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, where he studied with James Giles. In Europe, he studied with Amy Lin at the Académie Supérieure de Musique in Strasbourg and with Margarita Höhenrieder at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich. His teachers in Brazil were Dirce Knijnik and Cristina Capparelli at the University of Rio Grande do Sul. He also received invaluable artistic advice from Cristina Ortiz during intensive studies in Paris and Bordeaux.
His most recent project involved an artistic residency at the Brahms Museum in Baden-Baden, Germany, as an invited guest of the Brahms Society. Other projects have included the first Portuguese translation of the Liszt-Pädagogium, written by F. Liszt’s pupil Lina Ramann; research for the documentary film “Artur Schnabel: Composer in Exile” for the TV channel ARTE (Berlin); an article on Schubert’s piano music for the Ad Parnassum Journal (Italy); and the recording of Hugues Dufourt’s work Meeresstille in the presence of the composer (Coviello Classics) as part of the complete recording of his piano music. The CD received recognition from Swiss and French radio stations, as well as the Académie Charles Cros—the French Recording Academy. Furthermore, Faistauer performs and promotes the music of Brazilian composers. In partnership with the Brazilian Piano Institute, he recently made the first recording of the works of Lucília Villa-Lobos, the wife of Heitor Villa-Lobos and a forgotten composer and pianist.
Faistauer is a recipient of the A. and H. Cottongim Award for Musical and Academic Excellence from Northwestern, as well as fellowships and scholarships from various institutions that have impacted his artistic development over the years, including the Gilmore Piano Festival, Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards, Northwestern’s Eckstein Fund, Région Alsace in France, and Brazil’s National Council for Scientific Development.
Rodolfo Faistauer is Visiting Assistant Professor of Music and Director of the Piano Area at Whitman College. He was previously on the faculty of Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, where he taught Piano Literature. Faistauer is regularly invited to serve as an adjudicator in piano competitions, give master classes, and lectures in the United States and abroad.