Steinway Piano Series
The concerts of James Tocco and Ursula Oppens are presented in collaboration with the Adams Foundation. The remaining concerts of the 2011-2012 Steinway Piano Series are sponsored by R. Philip Hilf, CFP®, Financial Advisor, and Jeffrey Mendola, CMFC, Managing Principal of the Monroeville office of Waddell & Reed.
All Steinway Piano Series concerts are held in the theater at Pittsburgh CAPA on Sundays at 3:00 p.m.*
Sergey Shepkin April 15, 2012 |
Sponsored by R. Philip Hilf, CFP®, Financial Advisor, and Jeffrey Mendola, CMFC, Managing Principal of the Monroeville office of Waddell & Reed.
Sergey Shepkin
April 15, 2012 Program: TBA The Russian-American pianist Sergey Schepkin has performed across the globe, from the United States to Europe to Japan to New Zealand. He made his Carnegie Hall recital debut in 1993 (at Weill Recital Hall) to an enthusiastic reception from the audience and The New York Times, and has performed at the Great Performers Series at Lincoln Center, Celebrity Series of Boston, Boston's Emmanuel Music, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, the LACMA and Maestro Series in Los Angeles, the Grand and Chamber Philharmonic Halls in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the Sumida Triphony Hall in Tokyo, among many other venues and series. Schepkin’s immense repertoire includes solo, concerto, and chamber works written over the past four hundred years. The Boston Globe defined Schepkin as "an artist of uncommon, almost singular capability and integrity... [who] synthesizes the most diverse approaches and insights." The New York Times deemed him "a Romantic firebrand" and "an estimable Brahmsian." Schepkin is recognized as one of the world's foremost interpreters of keyboard works by Johann Sebastian Bach, and was hailed by The New York Times as "a formidable Bach pianist . . . [who] plays with the passion and drama of a young Glenn Gould." The Boston Phoenix once described him as "one of Boston's great treasures, a supremely intelligent pianist who plays Bach as well as anyone." Schepkin has performed concertos with such conductors as Keith Lockhart, Christian Knapp, Jonathan McPhee, Nikolai Alexeev, and Vassily Sinaisky. A passionate chamber player, he has performed with many renowned instrumentalists, including the Borromeo, Cuarteto Latinoamericano, New Zealand, and Vilnius string quartets. He was a founding member and artistic advisor of the Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston. An advocate of new music, Schepkin earned Sofia Gubaidulina's praise for his interpretation of her piano Chaconne, and has collaborated with and premiered works by Alan Fletcher, Michael Gandolfi, and the late Daniel Pinkham, as well as by several American composers of a younger generation. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Schepkin studied piano at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with Alexandra Zhukovsky, Grigory Sokolov, and Alexander Ikharev, graduating summa cum laude in 1985. He gave his first full-length piano recital in 1978 and made his orchestral debut with the St. Petersburg Academic Philharmonic Orchestra in 1984. After his move to the United States in 1990, he studied with Russell Sherman at New England Conservatory in Boston, where he earned an Artist Diploma in 1992 and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 1999. In 1994-98, Schepkin coached with the late legendary French-American pianist Paul Doguereau. Since 1993, Schepkin has taught piano for the New England Conservatory Department of Preparatory and Continuing Education; since 2003, he has also served as Associate Professor of Piano at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He has been appointed as Visiting Associate Professor at Boston University for the 2011-12 academic year. He has presented lectures-recitals and master classes at New England Conservatory, M.I.T., Longy School of Music, UCLA, the San Francisco Conservatory, Oberlin Conservatory, Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, and other institutions of higher learning. Schepkin's awards include the first and Chopin prizes in the 1999 New Orleans International Piano Competition, top prizes in the 1988 Crown Princess Sonja and 1985 All-Russia piano competitions, first prize in the 1978 International Competition for Young Musicians in Prague, the 1995 and 1999 Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation Awards, the 1993, 1995, and 1999 St. Botolph Club Foundation Grants, the 1993 Harvard Musical Association Award, and the 1992 Presser Foundation Award. In 2003, he was awarded the Maestro Foundation Genius Grant. His Bach Partitas recordings were nominated for the Indie Award in 1997 and 1998. In 2001, the International Piano magazine selected his recording of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier I as one of the best ever made. Schepkin's 2008 (second) recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations was released in Japan by King International in November 2010 and was nominated as the Editor's Choice by the influential Geijutsu arts magazine shortly thereafter. In the spring of 2011, he appeared in recital at the Maestro Foundation in Los Angeles and the Chatham University in Pittsburgh, and presented a master class at Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University; he also played works by Bach and Schubert/Liszt for the Carnegie Mellon University gala at Steinway Hall in New York City. In May, he took part in the Celebrity Series of Boston "Mad about Marty" tribute to Martha H. Jones in Boston's Paramount Center, performed a benefit recital in Providence, and played chamber works by Beethoven and Ernest Bloch with the Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston at Boston's Goethe-Institut. In June, he made his Tokyo Symphony Orchestra debut performing Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto under the baton of Kazuyoshi Akiyama. In October, he will play the Arensky Piano Trio with Masuko Ushioda and Laurence Lesser in Boston's Jordan Hall, and perform Liszt's Second Piano Concerto under Bruce Hangen at the opening night of the Indian Hill Music. His December trip to Japan will include a recital featuring Bach's "Goldberg" Variations at the Sumida Triphony Hall in Tokyo. In the spring of 2012, he will play recitals and chamber music in Boston, New Hampshire, and Pittsburgh, and will perform Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto with the Nashua (NH) Symphony under Jonathan McPhee. Schepkin latest CD, featuring Brahms's late piano cycles (Op. 116-119) was released by King International Japan on December 1, 2011. Sergey Schepkin is a Steinway Artist. |