The College of Charleston School of the Arts announces its 2013-14 Season of the International Piano Series. Four concerts have been scheduled featuring Pavel Kolesnikov, 2012 Honens Prize Laureate -Russia; Roberto Plano – Italy; Jon Kimura Parker – Canada; and Konstantinos Papadakis – Greece. Season tickets for all four concerts are $70 and individual tickets are $20. Pre-order tickets (general seating) online or by calling (843) 953-6575. College of Charleston students and those under 18 years old are admitted free of charge. All concerts take place at 8:00 p.m. in the College of Charleston Sottile Theatre, 44 George St.
The International Piano Series (IPS) is Charleston’s longest running, year-round program with a pure focus on piano. Consistent with the School’s mission, IPS plays a distinctive role in the lives of students and the community by implementing excellence in the arts and education and cultivating piano music appreciation.
Each year, IPS stages concerts for pianists hailing from the United States and around the world. While on campus, the guest artists offer masterclasses in which students perform and receive critique. These masterclasses are open to the public. The performers range from young professionals emerging onto the world stage to seasoned performers with long-established careers.
Proceeds from ticket sales and donations ensure the longevity of the program and support educational opportunities for music students.
Pavel Kolesnikov, 2012 Honens Prize Laureate – Russia • Tuesday, September 24, 2013 [buy tickets]
Pavel Kolesnikov wowed audiences at the Spoleto Festival USA Chamber Music Series this year. Now Charleston has an opportunity to hear him in a full-length solo performance.
The Telegraph (London) describes Russian pianist Pavel Kolesnikov’s playing as having “brilliance, but also a caressing, almost sly intimacy.” Kolesnikov made his recital debut in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory in 2008 and has since played both as soloist and collaborator throughout Russia and Europe. Recent and upcoming engagements include festival appearances at Spoleto Festival USA, Ottawa International Chamber Music and Banff Summer Arts Festivals (Canada), and Plush Festival (United Kingdom). He will soon make debuts at Berlin’s Konzerthaus, London’s Wigmore Hall and New York’s Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall. His first studio recording—an all-Tchaikovsky disc—will be released on the Hyperion label in 2014. A live recording of his winning Honens Prize performances is available now on the Honens label. Kolesnikov studies at Moscow State Conservatory with Sergey Dorensky, at London’s Royal College of Music with Norma Fisher and at Brussels’ Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel with Maria João Pires. He calls London home.
Roberto Plano – Italy • Tuesday, January 21, 2014 [buy tickets]
Italian native Roberto Plano performs regularly throughout North America and Europe – notably at Lincoln Center, and Sala Verdi. He has appeared with orchestras all over the world under the direction of renowned conductors Sir Neville Marriner, and Pinchas Zuckerman, and been a featured recitalist at the internationally acclaimed Chopin Festival, the Portland Piano Festival, and many others. Plano performs with some of the finest chamber music groups in the world, including the Takács, the Fine Arts, the St. Petersburg, the Vogel and the Henschel String Quartets. He has won the Cleveland International Piano Competition, Honens, Dublin, Sendai, Geza Anda and Valencia Competitions and 15 First Prizes in National Competitions in Italy. He has recorded CDs for Sipario, Azica, Arktos, and he recently released a World Première CD on the Concerto label with music by Andrea Luchesi (1741-1801) that received with 5 out of 5 stars in the music magazine “Musica”. In February 2013, Plano gave the world premiere of two Luchesi piano concertos with the Busoni Chamber Orchestra in Trieste, Italy. Plano studied at the Verdi Conservatory in Milan, the Ecole Normale “Cortot” in Paris and the Lake Como Academy. He is Founder and Director of the Music Association “Alfred Cortot”; his masterclasses, taught at his own music academy and worldwide, are in high demand.
Jon Kimura Parker – Canada • Tuesday, February 18, 2014 [buy tickets]
Internationally acclaimed pianist Jon Kimura Parker has performed as guest artist with the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and with the major orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and throughout Canada. Some highlights of his extensive list of accomplishments include recitals in London, New York, Chicago, Munich, Budapest, Sydney, Hong Kong, and Tokyo; performance with the Tokyo Quartet and Joshua Bell; and performance in war-torn Sarajevo in 1995 at the 50th Anniversary of AmeriCares. Parker was awarded his country’s highest honor, the Order of Canada, in 1999. Parker is Professor of Piano at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. He received his doctorate at The Juilliard School in 1988 under Adele Marcus.
Konstantinos Papadakis – Greece • Tuesday, March 18, 2014 [buy tickets]
Konstantinos Papadakis has performed in recitals and collaborated with chamber ensembles and orchestras in the world’s major concert halls and famous artistic centers from Russia and Southern Europe to the United States and Canada. He has recorded several works especially written for him by contemporary composers, many of which have been broadcast on radio and television. He has won several prizes and distinctions at international piano competitions, including the prestigious Yannis Vardinoyannis Award, given for the first time to a pianist, as well as the Esther & Albert Kahn Award. In addition to repeated solo appearances with Boston’s Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, Papadakis holds the prestigious Motoko and Gordon Deane Principal Chair as the Orchestra’s pianist. From 2006 to 2011, he was the “Samuel Barber Artist-in-Residence” at West Chester University in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Papadakis teaches at the New England Conservatory’s Pre-College Division and recently joined the piano faculty at the Boston University.