Sean Bennett

NMS Artist Development & College-Prep Faculty

Sean Bennett is a classical pianist of American origin most notable for being one of the most downloaded classical musicians in the history of the internet (nearly 2 million downloads to date), one of the youngest to perform Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #3 at 14, the first to write-down, record, and perform the famed Horowitz arrangements all in the same concert, and the world's expert on the science behind why music sticks in peoples' thoughts (a process he calls "Musical Imagery Repetition," or MIR).

Commonly regarded as a former child-prodigy, Bennett won a prize in a Disney song-arranging contest at 5, gave his debut concert at the age of 7 playing Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2, won national acclaim in the PTA Reflections composition contest at 10, and at 14, gained international attention after becoming the one of the youngest in the world to ever perform and record Rachmaninov's 3rd Piano Concerto.

At this point benefactor Baxter J. Noyes awarded Bennett with a new Steinway B grand piano and funded him to receive studies and extended consultations with Juilliard and Curtis Faculty, including John Browning, Peter Serkin, Emanuel Ax, Jerome Lowenthal, Seymour Lipkin, Leon Fleisher, Dmitry Paperno, Vladimir Leyetchkiss and Gary Graffman. Positive reviews by the Chicago Tribune, the Indianapolis Star, Ruth Laredo, Marvin Hamlisch, and John Bell Young, established him on the performing circuit through his teenage years.

At 19, after giving 400 solo concerts and performing with many orchestras, on NPR, regular radio, television, performing for the foreign consulates of 20 countries and Polish President Lech Walesa, and being named a winner in 50 local, national, and international competitions including the Kosciuszko National Chopin Competition and 7 awards from Steinway, Bennett retired from competitions. At this time, he set to study piano in isolation so he could release recordings directly to the public.

During his period of artistic isolation, Bennett studied Neuroscience at Harvard advised by MIT linguist Noam Chomsky and psychologist Richard Hackman as a USA Today All-USA College Team member. He won the coveted Gates Cambridge Scholarship for further graduate studies at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, where he was elected chair of the Gates Council by 73% of voting scholars, allowing him to work with Bill Gates Sr. to promote Gates Foundation aims, and where he investigated why music sticks in peoples' thoughts so he could raise the bar for memorable music performances. It was during this period from 2002-2005 that by ear, Bennett became one of the first to transcribe, record, and perform the set of the famed Vladimir Horowitz arrangements in a 25 concert tour throughout the UK.

Due to a strong desire to see young people study music, in 1998, Bennett began releasing recordings for free download over the Internet. His first recordings on MP3.com and on Vitaminic.com were downloaded by over 300,000 music enthusiasts beginning in 1999, earning Bennett a rank in the top 10 classical artists among 240,000 on MP3.com and translation of his page into 17 languages. In May and October of 2004, Bennett was ranked as the #1 most downloaded classical artist on the Internet by Download.com, and ranked in the Top Ten for downloads of songs from all musical genres. He remains to this day the only classical artist on Download.com to have had a Top Ten selection. On Vitaminic, until their closure, he was in the top ten classical artists continuously for nearly 2 years. In September 2006, he became the 11th most viewed music channel on Youtube.com for the week and the #1 most viewed classical channel. To date, his download and view count on Youtube is over 1,000,000. His recordings are also available on 122 commercial download sites, cell phone mp3 providers, and coffeeshop music compilations, including many of the most well-known brands (iTunes, Napster, Starbucks, Rhapsody, RollingStone.com, eMusic, and others).

While releasing new recordings, Bennett has continued his research on MIR, has taught extensively at Cambridge University, investigated the neuroscience of teams for the Central Intelligence Agency and published the results, has been the Associate Director of MIND, a center for exceptionally gifted children, won the Bok Award recognizing the top student evaluation ratings at Harvard for his psychology teaching in 2004 with bestselling author Steven Pinker, and continues philanthropic work started with Bill Gates Sr. He additionally owns and runs several businesses in the field of rare books and arbitrage.

Bennett’s has taught musicians for almost 30 years. His teaching activities have focused on masterclasses and ongoing coaching of prodigious talents and touring concert artists. He has advised several former Verbier Academy students, as well as the winner of the National MTNA Senior Piano title, the 1st prize winner of the Amateur Van Cliburn International Competition, 1st prize Geneva, and 1st prize Rubinstein International Competition winners, the Gold medalist of the Junior and Senior Tchaikovsky competition, as well as other under 18 year old emerging talents. His concert artist advisees to date have included Alexander Malofeev, Benjamin Grosvenor, Alexandre Kantorow, and others. He splits his time between San Diego, Las Vegas, and Chicago. More details and recordings of Sean Bennett may be found at his website, seanbennett.net.