Photo by Chris Lee

Olga Kern

Russian-American pianist Olga Kern is now recognized as one of her generation’s great artists. With her vivid stage presence, passionately confident musicianship and extraordinary technique, the striking pianist continues to captivate fans and critics alike. Olga Kern was born into a family of musicians with direct links to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff and began studying piano at the age of five. She jumpstarted her U.S. career with her historic Gold Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas as the first woman to do so in more than thirty years.

Steinway Artist and First prize winner of the Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition at the age of seventeen, Ms. Kern is a laureate of many international competitions and tours throughout Russia, Europe, the United States, Japan, South Africa and South Korea. In 2016 she served as Jury Chairman of both the Seventh Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition and the first Olga Kern International Piano Competition, where she also holds the title of Artistic Director.

Kern serves as Artist in Residence to the San Antonio Symphony’s 2017-18 season, appearing in two subscription weeks as well as solo recital. She will also perform with Madison Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Austin Symphony, New Mexico Philharmonic, Arizona Musicfest Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, and Hawaii Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Kern will premiere her first American concerto Barber’s Piano Concerto with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Leonard Slatkin. She will give recitals at the University of Arizona, the Lied Center in Lincoln, NE, the Sanibel Music Festival in Sanibel, FL, and abroad in Mainz and Turin. Additionally, Ms. Kern will perform in the Huntington Estate Music Festival with Musica Viva in Australia.

Highlights of the previous season include her Chinese debut with the National Youth Orchestra of China tour, concerts with Pacific Symphony, Colorado Symphony, the State of Mexico Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart Philharmonic, Tivoli Symphony Orchestra, and La Jolla Music Festival, and recitals in Santa Fe, New Haven, Scottsdale, and San Francisco. Ms. Kern opened the Baltimore Symphony’s 2015-2016 centennial season with Marin Alsop. Other season highlights included returns to the Royal Philharmonic with Pinchas Zukerman, Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice with Giancarlo Guerrero, a month-long tour of South Africa for concerts with the Cape and KwaZulu Natal philharmonics, an Israeli tour with the Israel Symphony, solo recitals at Sarasota’s Van Wezel Hall, New York’s 92nd Street Y, and the University of Kansas’ Lied Center, and recitals with Renée Fleming in Carnegie Hall and Berkeley.

In recent seasons, Ms. Kern has performed with Tokyo’s NHK Symphony, Orchestre National De Lyon, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, the symphonies of Detroit for Tchaikovsky Piano Concertos 1, 2 & 3, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Nashville, Colorado, Madison, and Austin, and gave recitals in New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Louisville, and alongside Renée Fleming and Kathleen Battle. Ms. Kern’s performance career has brought her to many of the world’s most important venues, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Salzburger Festspielhaus, La Scala in Milan, Tonhalle in Zurich, and the Châtelet in Paris.

Ms. Kern’s discography includes Harmonia Mundi recordings of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Christopher Seaman (2003), her Grammy Nominated recording of Rachmaninoff’s Corelli Variations and other transcriptions (2004), a recital disk with works by Rachmaninoff and Balakirev (2005), Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Warsaw Philharmonic and Antoni Wit (2006), Brahms Variations (2007) and a 2010 release of Chopin Piano Sonatas No. 2 and 3 (2010). Most recently, SONY released their recording of Ms. Kern performing the Rachmaninoff Sonata for Cello and Piano with cellist Sol Gabetta. She was also featured in the award-winning documentary about the 2001 Cliburn Competition, Playing on the Edge, as well as Olga’s Journey, Musical Odyssey in St. Petersburg and in They Came to Play. In 2012, Olga and her brother, conductor and composer, Vladimir Kern, co-founded the “Aspiration” foundation whose objective is to provide financial and artistic assistance to musicians throughout the world.

In 2017, Ms. Kern was gratified to receive the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, joining other honorees including Rosa Parks, Buzz Aldrin, Coretta Scott King, and Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. This commendation recognizes Americans who “embody the spirit of America in their salute to tolerance, brotherhood, diversity, and patriotism.”

Arkady Aronov

Before coming to the United States in 1977, Russian pianist Dr. Arkady Aronov was one of the leading pianists in the Soviet Union. Soviet Music, the most prestigious Russian musical journal, wrote that Aronov “presents any music with equal clarity, expression, and finality. As a most accomplished pianist he is a welcome sight on any concert stage and should be ranked among the best pianists of our time.” In the United States, Dr. Aronov has been acclaimed by the New York Times as “a pianist of high caliber” and “model of clarity and good sense,” a “thundering virtuoso” whose playing is “authoritative and personal.”

Dr. Arkady Aronov studied piano with the renowned Savshinsky at the Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory of Music in Leningrad. In 1960 he was appointed professor of piano at his alma mater, a position he held until emigrating in 1977. Dr. Aronov gained a reputation in Russia as an outstanding interpreter of baroque, classical, romantic, and contemporary music for the keyboard. His repertoire includes more than forty-five complete recital programs and twenty-four piano concerti. In addition to playing over a thousand recitals in the Soviet Union, appearing as guest soloist with numerous orchestras and on radio and television throughout Russia’s major cities, he presented four historic series of twenty concerts, embracing the music of three centuries in the Leningrad Concert Hall. He was the first to perform the music of leading contemporary Russian composers and debuted some Western compositions in Russia. His performance of Aaron Copland’s Sonata won the praise of the composer, for whom Mr. Aronov gave a special performance in Leningrad.

Dr. Aronov has written numerous scholarly works, including “Dynamic, Articulation and Tempi in Beethoven’s Piano Compositions.” He also edited and published two collections of concert piano pieces by the Russian avant-garde and was the founder and editor of a series of 18 volumes for students, entitled “Contemporary Composers for Youth.”

Dr. Arkady Aronov has been a member of the piano faculty at Mannes College of Music since 1977 and of the Manhattan School of Music College and Precollege piano faculty since 1984. He is a Steinway artist. His students are among the winners of more than 100 international, national, and school competitions (including 68 first prizes). Among the piano competitions are the Van Cliburn (special award for semi-finalists), Gina Bachauer, New Orleans, San Antonio, San Jose, Alabama, Cincinnati (AMSA), Palm Beach, Frina Awerbuch, Leschetizky, and Hilton Head Island International Piano Competition. His graduates are on the piano faculties at prestigious universities and colleges in the U.S., including Yale University School of Music, Mannes College of Music, University of Utah, Brigham Young University, California State University, Michigan State University. Many of them enjoy active concert careers in the United States and throughout the world.

In addition to his full-time positions in New York, Dr. Aronov conducts piano master classes in the U.S., Italy, France, Spain, Russia, China, India, Taiwan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Costa Rica. He is a piano faculty member of several festivals, including the Summit Music Festival (U.S.), Burgos International Music Festival (Spain), the Meranofest and the International Academy of Music in Castel Nuovo di Garfagnana (both in Italy).

Dr. Aronov believes that a composer’s text (“Urtext”) is the gospel for musicians. The student and the teacher must permanently learn this inexhaustible source of wonderful discoveries as deeply as possible. To be based on performing traditions is another important principle of Dr. Aronov’s pedagogy. In his understanding, a tradition is alive and useful only when it is updated from the contemporary perspective and includes an individual interpretation of a composition.

Dr. Aronov as a musician and pedagogue has been the subject of doctoral theses by young researchers who chose his teaching methods and style as their topic. In 2010, Dr. Aronov received the most prestigious award of Manhattan School of Music, the Presidential Medal for Distinguished Faculty Service and extraordinary pedagogical influence in the community.

Photo by Richard Termine.

Alexander Beridze

Hailed by American Record Guide as an “exceptional artist,” pianist Alexander Beridze thrills audiences and critics alike with his dazzling precision and range, as well as his insightful eloquence and sensitivity. Gold Medalist of the 2009 World Piano Competition, Beridze made his New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall in 2011 where critics called his performance “brilliant, superb and simply electrifying” and “a splendid one that passed by almost too quickly.”

A native of the Republic of Georgia, Beridze has performed as soloist with the major orchestras in his home country, including the Tbilisi State Symphony, the Georgia National Symphony Orchestra, and the Republic of Georgia State Opera and Ballet Symphony. He made his US concerto debut performing under the direction of Vladimir Feltsman in New York in 2004. In addition to his Alice Tully recital, he has concertized at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Hall, Steinway Hall, the Russian Consulate, and Harris Hall in Aspen. Devoted to chamber music, his collaborations include concerts with cellist Yehuda Hanani.

Beridze gave a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in the fall of 2014, where he performed works by Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann. This program was also featured on his released debut solo recording by NY Classics, and was broadcast on radio throughout the United States and Canada.. His media credits include performances that have been broadcast to 57 countries from New York’s RTVI, and NTV America, two of the most popular channels in Russia and post-Soviet countries. An appearance as a special guest on Voice of America counts among his many radio credits.

Attending conservatory as his country was suffering from the devastating effects of separating from the collapsed Soviet Union, Beridze persevered in his study of piano performance, winning the major Georgian competitions, receiving Georgia's President's Grants in 2001 and 2005, and the Vladimir Spivakov Award in 2003. He first came to international attention as the winner of the 2004 Jacob Flier International Piano Competition, run by legendary pianist Vladimir Feltsman, who invited Beridze to move to the United States to study with him at the Mannes School of Music.

A passionate teacher, Beridze is on the faculty of the Center of Musical Excellence in New York City and has served as Artist in Residence at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. In 2009, he founded the New York Piano Festival, where he serves as Artistic Director, organizing an international concert and master class series and providing concert opportunities to young students to perform in venues throughout New York City. In the Republic of Georgia, Beridze received undergraduate and advanced degrees at Tbilisi State Conservatory. Upon arriving in the United States, he earned a Professional Studies degree at the Mannes School as a student of Vladimir Feltsman and his Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Rutgers, State University of New Jersey.

Beridze also holds a doctorate in journalism from Tbilisi State University. As a correspondent for Krivis Palitra, a weekly newspaper in the Republic of Georgia, he was the author of more than 500 articles on music and interviewed many of the world’s most renowned musicians, including Rostropovich, Rozhdestvensky, Bashmet, and Vengerov.

Dedicated to raising funds for cancer research, he has produced and performed numerous charity concerts.

Professor of Tbilisi State Conservatory, Georgia

Mamuka Sikharulidze

Mamuka Sikharulidze, Professor of Tbilisi State Conservatory, Georgia

Executive Director New York Piano Festival & Competition
(Photo by Richard Termine.)

Mai Kagaya

As a chamber musician and solo performer, Mai Kagaya has appeared before audiences of Stern auditorium, Zankel Hall and Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall, and Steinway Hall, and also the Kaufman Center. In addition to these personal engagements, Ms. Kagaya performs concerts as a member of the New York Piano Duo, and performs frequently with Alexander Beridze in Aspen, CO, Palm Beach, FL, and NYC.

In her native Japan, Ms. Kagaya had already established herself as a virtuoso performer with a sensitive touch and sophisticated artistry while still a teenager. In 2003, she won the Dorothy MacKenzie Award at the International Keyboard Institute & Festival. As a result of her successful appearances, she was invited back to the festival the following year. She was also awarded numerous prizes by the Piano Teachers' National Association Competition and the Japan Piano Teacher's Association Competition, which led to her triumphal Tsuda Hall debut in Tokyo in 2001.

In 2004, Ms. Kagaya was selected to perform at the prestigious Hamarikyu-Asahi Hall in Tokyo. In 2006 she appeared as a soloist with the Kyushu Symphony Orchestra in Fukuoka City. Her performances were critically acclaimed and she was invited to study in the United States. In 2008, Mai performed with the Mannes Community Orchestra and Doctors Orchestra presented by the Mannes Extension Division as a winner of the Concerto Competition.

Ms. Kagaya performed at master classes presented by legendary pianists and teachers, Alicia de Larrocha, Earl Wild, Victor Merzhanov, and Mikhail Voskresensky. Among her private coaches was German Diez, an assistant pianist to Claudio Arrau.

Ms. Kagaya earned her BM degree at the Toho Conservatory in Japan with Yoriko Takahashi. She holds a Master of Music degree from Mannes College of Music where she studied with esteemed pianist and pedagogue Jerome Rose.