Young, award-winning pianist Andrew Tyson will open the new UAB Piano Series season with a performance Oct. 9, 2011.
The series will continue with Van Cliburn bronze medalist Christopher Taylor on Jan. 22, 2012, and the internationally regarded pianist Dmitry Rachmanov will perform March 11, 2012.
The UAB Piano Series, presented by the UAB Department of Music and programmed by UAB Artist-in-Residence and Professor of Piano Yakov Kasman, brings the world’s finest pianists to Birmingham for performances at UAB’s Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center.
All performances will take place at 4 p.m. inside the Alys Stephens Center’s intimate Reynolds-Kirschbaum Recital Hall, 1200 10th Ave. South. Season tickets to all three performances are $30. Individual tickets are $15 for the general public and $5 for UAB students and employees with valid ID. Call 205-975-2787 for tickets. Visit the department online at www.uab.edu/cas/music.
Andrew Tyson, Oct. 9, 2011
In May, Tyson, 24, was named a winner of the The Juilliard School’s 2011 Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition. A prize-winner in both the Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Piano Competition and the National Chopin Competition of the United States, Tyson also was a semifinalist in the 2010 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw — his first venture into international competitions. He made his debut at age 15 at the Eastern Music Festival with the Guilford Symphony Orchestra after winning the festival’s concerto competition.
He has appeared in concerts throughout the United States, Mexico, Portugal, Belgium and Luxembourg, Paris, Valencia, Berlin, Copenhagen and Warsaw. He has performed with the Durham Symphony, Raleigh Symphony, Chapel Hill Philharmonic, Frost Symphony Orchestra of the University of Miami, among others. A native of Durham, N.C., Tyson is in the master of music degree program at Juilliard and studies with Robert McDonald, since graduating in 2010 from the Curtis Institute of Music.
Christopher Taylor, Jan. 22, 2012
The Boston Globe declared that American pianist Taylor “has emerged as the leading American pianist of his generation.” Taylor took the Bronze Medal in the 1993 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, received an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1996 and was named an American Pianists’ Association Fellow in 2000. Pursuing a varied and acclaimed career, Taylor is involved in several fascinating projects, from the Bach Goldberg Variations performed on a unique dual-manual Steinway, to the complete Messiaen “Vingt Regards sur L’Enfant Jesus,” now in DVD release.
As a soloist he has performed in New York’s Carnegie and Alice Tully halls, in Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center, the Ravinia and Aspen festivals and more. He frequently is in demand for concerto repertoire, from Liszt and Beethoven to Gershwin and Ullman. Taylor is the Paul Collins Associate Professor of Piano at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in mathematics.
Dmitry Rachmanov, March 11, 2012
Rachmanov has won prizes at the Kapell, Senigallia and Awerbuch competitions, received the ArtsLink grant and held a fellowship from the American Pianists’ Association. He has performed at London’s Barbican and South Bank, the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall and festivals including Banff in Canada, Prussia Cove in England, Moulin d'Andé in France, Upbeat-Hvar in Croatia, Spoleto USA, Bard and the IKIF in New York. He has collaborated with the Manhattan Philharmonia, Brooklyn Philharmonic, London Soloists Chamber Orchestra, Ukraine National Symphony, National Orchestra of Porto, Portugal and others. A strong proponent of the Russian repertoire, he gave the United States’ premiere of Boris Pasternak’s “Piano Sonata,” broadcast nationwide by National Public Radio, and his recital “The Art of the 19th Century Russian Character Piece” was noted by The New York Times for the “considerable color and focus” he brought to each work.
Rachmanov studied at Moscow’s Gnesins School and is a graduate of The Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music, where he was awarded the George Schick Award for Outstanding Musicianship. He has been on the faculties of Manhattan School of Music, Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University and Long Island Conservatory, SUNY, and now is an associate professor of music at California State University, Northridge.
Rachmanov studied at Moscow’s Gnesins School and is a graduate of The Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music, where he was awarded the George Schick Award for Outstanding Musicianship. He has been on the faculties of Manhattan School of Music, Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University and Long Island Conservatory, SUNY, and now is an associate professor of music at California State University, Northridge.