Born in Pittsburgh, Awadagin moved to Normal Illinois at the age of 3 and began studying piano at the age of 6 and violin at the age of 9. At 16, he entered the University of Illinois, where he studied piano, violin, and conducting. At Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory of Music, he became the first student in the school’s history to receive diplomas in three performance areas.

When the 26-year-old pianist won the prestigious Naumburg Competition in New York in 1992, Awadagin Pratt became the first African-American classical instrumentalist to win first prize in this international competition. In 1994, Pratt was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant for career development. He has played with most of the major symphony orchestras in the United States and appeared in many summer festivals, including Ravinia and Wolf Trap. He has performed internationally in Japan, Germany, South Africa, Israel, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, and throughout the Caribbean.

Awadagin Pratt has been the subject of numerous articles in the national press, and he was named one of the 50 Leaders of Tomorrow in Ebony Magazine’s special 50th anniversary issue. Mr. Pratt was one of the featured soloists on PBS’s “Live from the Kennedy Center — A Salute to Slava.” He has performed twice at the White House during the Clinton administration.

Pratt’s debut CD, A Long Way From Normal (1994) includes works by Liszt , Brahms, Franck, and the Bach-Busoni “Chaconne.” His second CD (1996) includes four Beethoven piano sonatas. Pratt’s third CD, Live from South Africa (1997) was recorded at the NICO Opera House in Capetown. Transformations, Pratt’s fourth album (1999) contains Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” Brahms’ “Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel,” and Pratt’s own piano transcription of Bach’s “Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor.” An all Bach recording with the St. Lawrence String Quartet came out in early 2002.

In recent years, Pratt has ventured into more chamber and duo recitals with such performers as the Cypress String Quartet, cellist Zuill Bailey, and violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama. Additional noteworthy collaborations are the Piano Concerto that Pratt commissioned from composer Theodore Shapiro and the Next Generation Festival, a series of free chamber music concerts in central Pennsylvania, of which Pratt is the artistic director.

In September 2004, Pratt was appointed Assistant Professor of Piano and Artistin- Residence at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

In his spare time he is an active tennis player, devoted chess enthusiast and wine connoisseur.