Olga Kern
(Russian: ????? ????; born April 23, 1975) is a Russian classical pianist. She was born into a family of musicians with ties to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, and began studying piano with Evgeny Timakin at the Central Music School of Moscow when she was five. [1] Kern later continued with Sergei Dorensky at the Moscow Conservatory, where she also pursued her postgraduate studies. Kern also took instruction from Boris Petrushansky in Italy. After being eliminated in the preliminary rounds of the 1997 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Olga Pushechnikova went home to Moscow and underwent a complete makeover. "I change everything because I want to change my life, because I was really unhappy with my life," she said. She "changed everything" with a new last name derived from her mother's maiden name, with more musical maturity and competitions notched on her belt, with a new coiffure, a glamorous new wardrobe, and a marriage, a divorce, and the birth of a child. She currently resides in Moscow with her son Vladislav.
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OLGA KERN TICKETS
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Awards and titles
Kern won her first international competition at the age of eleven
[2], and she has achieved first prize in others since then, including the first
Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition at seventeen. She is a
laureate of eleven
international competitions, a recipient of an honorary
scholarship from the
President of Russia, and part of
Russia's International Academy of Arts.
In June 2001, she became the first woman in over thirty years to receive the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Gold Medal in the Eleventh
Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, tying for first with
Stanislav Ioudenitch of
Uzbekistan.
[3]
Performing and recording career
Kern has performed in such locations as the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Symphony Hall in
Osaka,
La Scala, Salle Cortot in
Paris, and the
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
She has also performed as a
soloist with the
Bolshoi Theater,
Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, St. Petersburg Symphony,
Russian National Orchestra,
China Symphony,
Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra,
Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, La Scala Philharmonic Orchestra, Anchorage Symphony Orchestra,
Torino Symphony, Bear Valley Music Festival Symphony,
Cape Town Symphony Orchestra and
Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
Kern records exclusively for
Harmonia Mundi USA. She is a
Yamaha Artist.
References
- Sheperd School of Music
- Olga Kern: 11th Van Cliburn Int'l Piano Competition 1
- Biography