Notable GHMS Alumni
At six years old, Robert Lopez began his piano studies at GHMS with pianist and educator Bennett Lerner and Maestro Diez. After earning a degree from Yale University, Lopez went on to co-create the Broadway musicals The Book of Mormon and Avenue Q as well as the music and lyrics for Disney’s Frozen, Frozen II, and Coco and the television shows WandaVision and Agatha, All Along with his wife Kristen Anderson-Lopez. Lopez is the youngest and one of only twenty-seven people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony Award, nicknamed the “EGOT”.
Erika Nickrenz
Erika Nickrenz, pianist, is a native of New York, where she made her concerto debut in Town Hall at age eleven. Ms. Nickrenz began her studies with German Diez and received her B.M. and M.M. degrees from the Juilliard School as a pupil of Abbey Simon; she is an active solo and chamber musician with more than eighty concerts this season. She appeared as soloist with the Jupiter Symphony in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and has toured with Music from Marlboro; as a member of Chamber Soloists USA she toured Tasmania and Australia, resulting in performances at the Sydney Opera House. She also founded As pianist of the Naumburg Award-winning Eroica Trio, Nickrenz has released 8 recordings for EMI and performs the Beethoven Triple Concerto more frequently than any other trio in the world.