ZABNER, Antoinette Van

Antoinette Van Zabner was born in Austria, raised in the United States and began her musical studies at the age of four; her childhood was formed by her prodigious talent as shown by prizes in numerous competitions and public performances as well as rewarded by a scholarship to study piano with Jean and Robert Casadesus and harmony with Nadia Boulanger in Fontainebleau, France.

At Vassar College, she was named Presser Scholar for her assiduous work in pursuit of excellence in the field of music; moving on to the Yale School of Music, she received her master’s degrees in Music and Musical Arts, winning, among other awards for outstanding performance, a Fulbright Grant for piano study at the Hochschule für Musik (now the University of Music and Performing Arts) in Vienna, Austria, where she studied with Dieter Weber and Hans Graf and earned her Diploma in piano performance. She and her university colleague and piano duo partner Elisabeth Aigner-Monarth co-authored the international best-sellers »Piano Fitness« and »Piano Fitness with Etudes« (Universal Edition), and »TWOgether« (Breitkopf und Haertel) – publications which have invigorated the traditional pedagogical literature scene and which have already become »classics« in modern teaching literature.