CIPC will present one of the best concerts of the year on August 23, as all four medalists from the 2013 Competition take the stage together, along with Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra, in what can only be described as a musical extravaganza. Jeannette Sorrell will conduct.
In advance of the concert we wanted to give readers an update on the recent activities of these busy pianists. Read on, and then come to the concert to hear their extraordinary gifts for yourself!
First Prize winner Stanislav Khristenko has been extraordinarily busy since last August. He has made multiple trips abroad, including Mexico, Korea, Serbia, Belgium, and Spain; and performed throughout the U.S., including a performance at Carnegie Hall that New York Times critic Zachary Woolfe praised as being marked by “thoughtful lucidity and restraint.” Mr. Woolfe was particularly impressed by Stanislav’s performance of Zemlinsky’s “Fantasies on Poems by Richard Dehmel,” praising his “unruffled, unrushed calm” and calling it “the revelation of the recital.”
Stanislav also has released a new CD on the Steinway & Sons label, which is available for download on iTunes. Featuring works by Schumann, Bruckner, Brahms, and the Zemlinsky that was praised so highly by Zachary Woolfe, the recording is “highly recommended” by James Manheim of All Music Guide.
Arseny Tarasevich-Nikolaev, winner of the Second Prize, has been concertizing throughout Russia in solo engagements and with orchestras. A highlight was an all-Mozart festival in which he performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 16.
He came to the United States in March, and performed in one of the most unlikely and beautiful venues – a floating barge at the foot of New York City’s Brooklyn Bridge. The small stage, ideal for recitals and chamber music, presents a dramatic backdrop of the East River and Lower Manhattan skyline. The concert was presented by Bargemusic, which offers concerts nearly year-round. While in New York, Arseny also performed at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall with fellow students from the Moscow P. I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory.
Third Prize winner François Dumont has been concertizing almost constantly throughout the 2013-14 season. He performed in Japan, Germany, China, Chile, and throughout his native France. One of the highlights was “Carte Blanche á François Dumont,” a two concerto performance with the Symphonique de Bretagne that included Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 2.
François is a member of the Trio Élégiaque, whose most recent CD, the Complete Beethoven Trios, was selected by France Musique as one of the “recordings of the year.” It is on the Brilliant Classics label. He will release a solo CD of works by Wagner and Liszt on the Piano Classics label in 2014 and another of works by Bach, Bach/Busoni and Bach/Liszt on the Artalinna label in 2015.
Jiayan Sun, the popular winner of both the Audience Prize and the Fourth Prize, has been continuing his studies in both piano performance and composition as a C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellow at The Juilliard School. He performs frequently at Juilliard as a pianist, harpsichordist, and fortepianist, both as a soloist and a chamber musician, and his compositions have been performed in concert as well.
His exquisite performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in the final round of the 2013 Competition led to several engagements during the 2013-14 season, including an invitation from Maestro Stefan Sanderling to perform with the Toledo Symphony.
2013 Medalists and Apollo’s Fire
Saturday, August 23 | 4:00 pm
Gartner Auditorium | Cleveland Museum of Art