KUSC: Pianist Olga Kern Lights Up Southern California Concert Halls
Renowned Russian-American pianist Olga Kern, 2001 winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, is coming to Southern California for a series of concerts starting with Friday at SOKA Performing Arts Centre, Broad Stage in Santa Monica this Saturday, and two performances on Saturday, February 16 with the Pasadena Symphony. Recently John Van Driel had a chance to talk to Ms. Kern about her busy performing and teaching schedule.
KUSC
John Van Driel
Renowned Russian-American pianist Olga Kern, 2001 winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, is coming to Southern California for a series of concerts starting with Friday at SOKA Performing Arts Centre, Broad Stage in Santa Monica this Saturday, and two performances on Saturday, February 16 with the Pasadena Symphony. Recently John Van Driel had a chance to talk to Ms. Kern about her busy performing and teaching schedule. Listen below or click here for more.
J. Jill Rhythm in Blues Campaign
More and more women are breaking barriers in all aspects of the music industry. J. Jill has brought together an eclectic group of artists including Anne Akiko Meyers, Olga Kern, and Patricia Price —the trailblazers, the firsts, the remarkable and revered to learn what they love about music and being on stage (or backstage or behind the lens), what inspires their day to day, and what they won’t go on tour without.
J.Jill
INSPIRED WOMEN
More and more women are breaking barriers in all aspects of the music industry. We’ve brought together an eclectic group of artists—the trailblazers, the firsts, the remarkable and revered to learn what they love about music and being on stage (or backstage or behind the lens), what inspires their day to day, and what they won’t go on tour without.
ANNE AKIKO MEYERS, CONCERT VIOLINIST
Anne’s 37th acclaimed album, Mirror in Mirror was recently released. She performs exclusively on the legendary Ex-Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesu, dated 1741, considered by many to be the finest violin in existence. Visit anneakikomeyers.com for upcoming performance dates and information.
OLGA KERN, CONCERT PIANIST + CLIBURN GOLD MEDAL WINNER
See Olga Kern perform this month in Illinois, California and New Mexico. For more details on her tour and career, visit olgakern.com.
PATRICIA PRICE, MUSIC CONSULTANT
To learn more about Patricia’s work, clients and projects, visit 8vamusicconsultancy.com.
Classical Post: Olga Kern's Life On And Offstage
Like so many key figures of classical music history (Bach, Mozart, and the Schumanns, to name a few), music is in Olga Kern’s blood. Coming from a family of musicians and a childhood filled with music, Olga could not imagine her life any other way, and sees it remaining the same even ten years from now - with all roads leading back to the piano.
Classical Post
Like so many key figures of classical music history (Bach, Mozart, and the Schumanns, to name a few), music is in Olga Kern’s blood. Coming from a family of musicians and a childhood filled with music, Olga could not imagine her life any other way, and sees it remaining the same even ten years from now - with all roads leading back to the piano. Olga opens up about this and other facets of her life, including fostering music education through her foundation Aspiration, motherhood, and painting nature to further inspire her music making.
Read Olga’s interview with Classical Post here.
Limelight Magazine: Huntington Estate Music Festival, Opening Weekend (Musica Viva)
The star of the concerts was the Russian-American pianist Olga Kern, outstandingly glamorous in dazzling multi-coloured dresses – a different one for each performance. On the first day she played a selection of Rachmaninov Preludes and Scriabin Études with sensational aplomb, accuracy and virtuosity. And her large hands made mincemeat of the notorious difficulties in Balakirev’s Islamey. It is a long time since I have heard – or seen – anything like this.
Limelight Magazine
Richard Gate
The Huntington Estate Music Festival is always an experience. The concerts are held in the Huntington Estate barrel shed, with rows of wine-filled oak barrels behind the players, while meals, which are served in the garden, are all part of the price and the event.
The programme for the opening weekend of this year’s Festival contained at least five undoubted masterpieces – the three Op. 59 quartets of Beethoven (known as the Razumovsky Quartets), the Chaconne for solo violin by Bach, and that outburst of youthful genius, the Octet for Strings by Mendelssohn.
It is no reflection on the quartet players to say that the star of the concerts was the Russian-American pianist Olga Kern, outstandingly glamorous in dazzling multi-coloured dresses – a different one for each performance. On the first day she played a selection of Rachmaninov Preludes and Scriabin Études with sensational aplomb, accuracy and virtuosity. And her large hands made mincemeat of the notorious difficulties in Balakirev’s Islamey. It is a long time since I have heard – or seen – anything like this.
The next day Kern demonstrated her flexibility by adopting an intimate, chamber music style to accompany the Canadian violinist Alexandre Da Costa in Brahms Sonata in D Minor Op 108. Both artists gave a perfect account of this difficult work. It was therefore surprising to me that Da Costa gave a less than perfect account of the Chaconne, which has a claim to be the greatest piece of music ever written. His tempi were too fast, the rhythm was not always steady and the different moods of the successive sections of the work were not conveyed. There was also some inelegant double-stopping.
Altogether though, the weekend provided an extremely enjoyable mixture of music, food, wine and rural living.
Inaugural Olga Kern International Piano Competition
The inaugural Olga Kern International Piano Competition launches in Albuquerque, New Mexico November 13-30, 2016. Chosen from more than 100 applications, 24 contestants will compete for a total of $30,000 in cash prizes in addition to international concert engagements and a professional recording.
The inaugural Olga Kern International Piano Competition launches in Albuquerque, New Mexico November 13-30, 2016. Chosen from more than 100 applications, 24 contestants will compete in front of eight international jury members for a total of $30,000 in cash prizes in addition to international concert engagements and a professional recording.
Over the past summer, the selection panel listened to very talented pianists from all over the world and selected the following 24 participants representing 15 countries for the week-long competition:
Nino Bakradze, Georgia
Sung Chang, Korea
Guang Chen, China
Junhui Chen, China
Willem de Beer, South Africa
Anna Dmytrenko, Ukraine (US)
Mehdi Ghazi, Canada
Shino Hidaka, Japan
Kyohei Imaizumi, Japan
Elizaveta Ivanova, Russia
Richard Octaviano Kogima, Brasil
Seong-Hyeon Leem, South Korea
Steven Massicotte, Canada
Francisco Montero, Spain
Liana Paniyeva, Ukraine
Joshua Rupley, US (NM)
Wenting Shi, China
Marie Sumnikova, Czech Republic
Stefan Weiler, Germany
Yumin Wu, China
Rui Xu, China
Yundi Xu, China
Fahrettin Eren Yahsi, Turkey
Yevgeny Yontov, Israel
Our 2 Alternates are:
Solomon Eichner, US (MD)
Anastasiya Naplekova, Ukrane (US)
The competition will take place every 3 years in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and is open to pianists 18 to 32 years old.