Meet Shai Wosner
Shai Wosner joins our piano faculty for the 2026 season.
Tell us about your early years playing piano. How old were you when you started lessons? Did you have a family or childhood friend introduce you to music?
I actually started to play the piano on my own, just because we had one at home – no one was playing it but I was intrigued! I taught myself how to play cheesy songs from the radio and was content and didn’t think I needed any lessons. But then my parents told me that if actually learned how to read music I could perhaps learn more songs… so I said yes.
Who were some of your early mentors?
I was very fortunate to grow up with 2 teachers – one was a piano teacher but the other one was the Hungarian-born composesr André Hajdu who was basically a teacher for everything else other than piano – we did improvisation, theory, composition… it was this infinite universe that I felt I was entering with every lesson. He was a unique figure – an orthodox Jew, who had studied with the likes of Kodaly in Budapest and later with Messiaen and Milhaud in Paris and was best friends Kurtag and Ligeti. Later on, when I came to study at Juilliard, I was very fortunate to study with Emanuel Ax who was and remains a close friend and mentor.
Was there a defining moment when you decided to pursue being a professional musician?
I never truly considered doing anything else but if there was ever such a moment, it may have been when I was 8 years old and my parents took me to see Amadeus. One of my most vivid childhood memories is watching the sequence in the film of the finale from The Abduction from the Seraglio – I was so absorbed that I started clapping at the end, forgetting that I was in a movie theater in Tel-Aviv rather than at the Imperial theater in 1782 Vienna. I still remember all the faces looking back to see who was clapping in the middle of the movie, but I actually didn’t care.
Where is your favorite place to practice?
Anywhere where there is piece and quiet and a decent piano.
What do you like best about playing or coaching chamber music?
You can rehearse or coach chamber music with total strangers whom you had never met before in your life, but the moment you enjoy a phrase together you instantaneously feel like you’ve known them for years.
What does managing your work/life balance look like for you?
I am very fortunate in that I get to make music with my kids who both play instruments and that we get to share what we do on a regular basis. My wife loves music, thankfully, so the lines between work and life get blurred sometimes.
What has been your most memorable performance so far?
In recent years, one of those was a concert in Berlin that I did with Pinchas Zukerman and Amanda Forsyth at the Boulezsaal. We were playing Beethoven’s Archduke Trio which is one of my favorite pieces in the whole world – and Daniel Barenoim, who has been dealing health problems that made it difficult for him to come out regularly nevertheless came to listen to us rehearse and stayed through the concert. It really felt like we were playing Archduke for a musical archduke and I will never forget that.
What do you do when you are not teaching, practicing, or performing?
I don’t really have interesting hobbies but in recent years I have gotten into arranging quite a lot, especially Beethoven Symphonies in chamber versions which is something I love diving into.