Carl Cranmer made his orchestral debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at age nine, playing Mozart’s Concerto in A Major, K. 488.   In addition to solo recitals in Europe, Asia, and North America, he has performed with the Royal Philharmonic of England, the Gulbenkian Orquesta of Portugal, the Juilliard Orchestra and several other orchestras in the U.S. and Asia.  Cranmer has performed chamber music with the Grammy-winning Takacs Quartet, violinist Axel Strauss and Akiko Suwanai, and tenor Robert White,among others.  The New York Times’ James Oesterreich, commenting on his Liszt 2^nd Concerto performance with the Juilliard Orchestra said, “He made light work of Liszt’s fiendishly demanding octaves, scales, and glissandos, showing a fine lyrical strain to boot.  And he did it all with lovely, controlled tone.”

In recent years he performed the quartet version of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Dali Quartet, solo recitals in Guangzhou, Beijing, and Xian, China and Seoul, South Korea, and Gershwin’s Concerto in F with the Helena Symphony and Southeastern Pennsylvania Symphony in 2020.   In recent years his solo recitals have been in Anchorage, AK, Salt Lake City, UT and Guangzhou, China.   In summer 2019 he was a member of the teaching faculty of the Aruba Symphony International Music Festival.  His performances have been televised in Madrid, Tokyo, Montreal, Washington D.C. and Philadelphia, and have been aired on American National Public Radio, and radio stations in Tokyo, New York, Chicago, Montreal, Boston, and Atlanta.  Cranmer performed two solo concert tours of Spain after winning the Spanish Music and Finalist Prizes in the Santander Paloma O’Shea International Piano Competition in Santander, and he was also the Grand Prize winner of the Missouri Southern Piano Competition.  He has also performed solo concerts in France, England, Austria, Japan, South Korea, China, and Canada.  His recordings include “Soirée,” an album of the music of Poulenc, Fauré, Liszt, Granados, West Chester native Samuel Barber, and a CD of the complete published solo piano music of Barber.   He also recorded Barber’s Piano Concerto with the Russian Philharmonic in 2008.   In 2025 he will record select two-piano works of Rachmaninov and Medtner with pianist Young-Ah Tak.  Cranmer has performed in Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, and Carnegie Weill Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and the Academy of Music, Verizon Hall and the Perelman Theater in Philadelphia.  In 2024, some of Cranmer’s performances include the Gershwin F major Concerto with the Grand Symphony orchestra in Korea and Helena Symphony orchestras, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Southeastern Pennsylvania Symphony Orchestra, and two albums of newly commissioned works for ‘cello and piano composers from all over the world with Romanian ‘cellist Ovidiu Marinescu.   The duo will also perform these works in two Carnegie Weill Recital Hall concerts in Spring 2025.

Cranmer currently a professor of piano at the Wells School of Music at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.   In 2016 he became Visiting Artist at the new Guangdong Open College-Conservatory in Foshan, China, and in August 2018 he was invited to be a juror of the international jury for the 12^th Moscow International Frederick Chopin Competition in Foshan, China.  Cranmer founded and was the director of the American Summer International Piano Forum (APF) at West Chester University, formed in 2016.  Cranmer is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Robert Shannon, and The Juilliard School, where he studied with Martin Canin and received his Professional Studies Certificate and Master and Doctoral degrees.