A native of Birmingham, Alabama, John Goodwin holds degrees in piano performance from Birmingham-Southern College and Northwestern University. He has been a featured soloist with many orchestras across the United States, including the Alabama, Shreveport, Beloit-Janesville and Chicago Youth Symphony orchestras, as well as the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra. In 2008 he joined the Park Ridge Civic Orchestra for an all-Beethoven program, which included both the Fourth Piano Concerto and the Choral Fantasy. In March of 2010, he joined the Mount Prospect Community Band in a special arrangement of Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2. As a recitalist, chamber musician and accompanist, he can regularly be seen in performance throughout Chicago and beyond, and has performed in such prestigious venues as Orchestra Hall (on piano and organ), Preston Bradley Hall, Ganz Hall, the Auditorium Theatre, Carnegie Hall and Riverside Church in New York City, Jordan Hall in Boston, Martinů Hall in Prague, Vladimir Palace in St. Petersburg, Teatro Solis in Montevideo, Teatro Gran Rex in Buenos Aires and the Musikverein in Vienna. On most weekday evenings, Goodwin can also be heard on WFMT and other public radio stations across the country playing the opening theme music for Bill McGlaughlin’s popular program Exploring Music.
For six years, Mr. Goodwin was a pianist for the Steans Institute Program for Singers at the Ravinia Festival, exploring the art of the Art Song with many world-renowned singers and pianists, including Thomas Hampson, Sir Thomas Allen, Christa Ludwig, Peter Schreier, Hermann Prey, Philip Moll and Roger Vignoles. He was on the faculty of Northwestern University for 10 years, coaching and performing a wide variety of choral, instrumental and vocal repertoire with students and faculty alike. He has also been a featured performer at the national conventions of the American Choral Directors’ Association, the International Double Reed Society and the National Flute Association, where he gave the world premiere of Jean Françaix’s Flute Sonata. Goodwin is currently the principal accompanist and resident conductor of the Chicago Children’s Choir, an accompanist for both the Chicago Symphony Chorus and Roosevelt University’s Choral Program, and is the founding music director and conductor of the Park Ridge Civic Orchestra Chorus.
