Piano Program

Piano Program Director

Fabio Witkowski is the program director of the Piano Portal. As both Chair of The Hotchkiss School Music Department and an accomplished professional pianist, Fabio’s commitment to developing musical students of all levels while simultaneously challenging exceptional musicians to continue to grow as artists and performers has made Hotchkiss a leader in attracting exceptional musicians and teachers. Fabio will coach piano ensemble, teach private lessons, and play a formal four-hands concert along with his partner and wife, Gisele.

A native of Brazil, Witkowski began his piano career at the age of six. Since then, he has been performing extensively throughout the world. Mr. Witkowski has given solo recitals in the Czech Republic, Brazil, Italy, China, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Boston, Hartford, Chicago, New York and Washington, DC. He has also appeared as a soloist with the Santo Andre Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra L’Estro Armonico, the Hartt Symphony Orchestra, the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, the São Bernardo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Paulista Symphony Orchestra. In Brazil, he received the first prize at the renowned Villa-Lobos Piano Competition, as well as the Lorenzo Fernandez Piano Competition. He has been awarded the first prize at the Connecticut State Music Teachers Association’s Young Artist Piano Concerto Competition, and received third prize, as well as an award for the best Stravinsky performance, in the Ibla Grand Prize International Piano Competition, in Italy.

He has performed at the Tanglewood Institute, the Liszt and Wagner International Festival, in Italy, the Prague International Piano Festival, Festival de Musica de Girona, in Spain, and the Liszt Festival, in Rio de Janeiro. For the past four years he has been a guest artist and piano faculty at the Amalfi Coast Music Festival in Italy, having shared the stage with renowned pianists such as Bobby Roux, Ian Robson, Luiz de Moura Castro and Paul Badura-Skoda. He appeared in chamber recitals with the Grammy-Award winning Emerson String Quartet, the Fine Arts Quartet, the Adaskin Trio, and with Mr. Robert deMaine, principal cellist of the Detroit Symphony.

Mr. Witkowski holds a cum laude BM and MM from the Hartt School of Music, where he studied under the guidance of Luiz de Moura Castro. He is currently the Chairman of the Hotchkiss School Music Department, where his teaching efforts have included him for three years in the “Who is Who Among America’s Teachers” publication.

Some of his past engagements include concerts at Bryant Park and Union Square Park, in New York City, both sponsored by the New York Times’s Young Performers Series. Mr. Witkowski also performs regularly with his wife, pianist Gisele Nacif Witkowski. They have appeared together in prestigious settings such as the Gardens of Villa Rufolo, in Ravello, Italy, at the Kennedy Center, in Washington, D.C. and at Carnegie Hall, in New York City. According to the New York Concert Review, the duo “shows marvelous rubato and tremendously clean playing, with a lovely sense of tone.”

Mr. Witkowski has been acclaimed by the critics as “One of Brazil’s most promising talents,” who “never fails to impress the audience,” and whose playing “is able to conjure up the devilish colors of an inferno as well as portray an ethereal paradise...” According to the Hartford Courant, “Mr. Witkowski revealed himself as an accomplished pianist, providing many passages of bravura, sensitivity, and pearly agility.”

Born in Cuba, Leonel Morales has lived in Spain since 1991, where he has been awarded many international prizes, including First Prize in the Guerrero Foundation International Piano Competition in Madrid and the Second Prize at Jaen International Piano Competition. He graduated from the University of Havana where he studied under Frank Fernandez, a student of renowned Moscow Conservatory professor Victor Merzhanov, firmly establishing Mr. Morales in the Russian pianist tradition. A professor of piano at the Conservatorio Superior de Castellón, Spain, Mr. Morales has performed all over the world, including the Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall in New York City. He has toured with various orchestras, including the Spanish National Orchestra, Spanish Radio and TV Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic of Galicia, Symphonic Orchestra of Bilbao, the Symphonic Orchestra of Hamburg, Frankfurt-Oder Orchestra, RAI National Orchestra of Turin, among many others. While on tour with the Spanish National Orchestra, he has been praised by The Washington Post for his “...extraordinary interpretation and power.” 

Morales’ ability and virtuosity have frequently been shown during his concert performances with the Spanish National Orchestra, Spanish Radio and TV Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic of Galicia, Symphonic Orchestra of Bilbao, Philharmonic Orchestra of Malaga, Symphonic Orchestra of Tenerife, Symphonic Orchestra of Murcia, the Symphonic Orchestra of Hamburg, Portuguese, Frankfurt-Oder Orchestra, RAI National Orchestra of Turin, Adana, Istambul and Ankara Symphonic Orchestras of Turkey, Virtuosos Orchestra of Berlin Philharmonic, Philarmonic Warsaw Orchestra, Dresdner Philharmonie, Philharmonic Orchestra of Bergen, Symphonic Orchestra of Ljubljana. 

Leonel Morales has become member of the “Academia de Bellas Artes de Santa Isabel de Hungría”, in Seville (Spain). He is probably one of the only pianists in the world to have performed all Rachmaninov concerti, including the Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, during two consecutive nights.

Mr. Morales and his wife are co-founders of the international piano competition “Spanish Composers” in Spain, International Piano Competition Maria Herrero, International Piano Festival Masterclass “Leonel Morales,” and International Piano Course for Children and Teenagers. He is also a guest professor at the Hotchkiss in Florence Music and Arts Festival, in addition to serving as a juror at major international piano competitions. In 2008, he was awarded the prestigious Tasto D’Agento prize in Alexandria, Italy, reserved for pianists with distinguished international concert careers. 

Robin Freund Epstein graduated from Manhattan School of Music, where she was a student of Solomon Mikowsky, with BM and MM degrees. As a winner of the Artists International competition she performed her Carnegie Recital Hall debut in 1999. Her recording Robert and Clara, music of Robert and Clara Schumann, was released in 2016 on the Master Performers label. She also recorded piano music for the HBO film and soundtrack Mildred Pierce, on the Varese Sarabande label. Robin Freund Epstein was a member of the Olmsted Trio, Bohemian Chamber Players, and Riverside Piano Quartet and a guest artist with the American Chamber Players. As soloist she has appeared with the Bay Atlantic Symphony, Brooklyn Symphony, and Atlantic Chamber Orchestra. Mrs. Epstein has been part of the Manhattan School of Music Precollege faculty since 1987.