"Post by PAI....." (See our letter to you on 8/24/04 please.)Friday, November 12, 2004
Copyright @ Las Vegas Review-Journal
Seeing the U.S.A.
Russian pianist Olga Kern is traveling across the country by car to Saturday's performance
By KEN WHITE
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Acclaimed Russian pianist Olga Kern is making her first trip to Las Vegas. "I'm sure it will be very interesting," she says.
The 95-member Warsaw Philharmonic is led by conductor Maestro Antoni Wit.
When Russian pianist Olga Kern sees America, she takes a good look at ground level.
Kern, who's performing Saturday with the Warsaw Philharmonic in Artemus Ham Hall at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, is driving by car from venue to venue.
In a recent phone interview, Kern was somewhere between Iowa and Nebraska with production manager Bernard Mueller at the wheel.
"It's really inspiring and exciting," Kern says of her trip across the United States. "It's beautiful and different everywhere. It's been a really good experience. I'm not tired of traveling, it's a part of my profession."
This weekend's stop is Kern's first time in Las Vegas. "I've only seen it in movies," Kern says. "My father has been there with the Bolshoi orchestra. He brought home photos. I'm sure it will be very interesting."
Certainly different from her native Russia. Kern, who lives in Moscow with her young son, Vladislav, began studying the piano at age 5. That would surprise no one who knew Kern's family -- her great-great-grandmother was a friend of Tchaikovsky, and her great-grandmother sang with Rachmaninoff.
"It is great having these connections," Kern says. "I heard all the stories when I was growing up."
She studied with acclaimed teacher Evgeny Timakin at the Moscow Central School, Sergei Dorensky at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where she was also a postgraduate student, and Boris Petrushansky at the acclaimed Accademia Pianistica Incontri col Maestro in Imola, Italy.
At 17, she won the first Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition, and in 2001, at 25, Kern won the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Gold Medal at the 11th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. She was the first woman to win the competition in more than 30 years.
Despite starting at a young age and considering the huge amount of time she had to devote to becoming a world-class pianist, Kern says she didn't sacrifice any aspect of her childhood.
"I was a normal child," Kern says. "I practiced five hours a day, but I always had time for books and painting, which I love to do, and school. I couldn't see myself without music. I was doing what I wanted to do."
Following her gold medal performance in the Van Cliburn competition, Kern was featured in "Playing on the Edge," the Peabody Award-winning documentary about the 11th Van Cliburn Competition that aired on PBS.
Her final round Cliburn competition performances with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and maestro James Conlon are showcased in the PBS series "Concerto."
She has performed in many of the world's most important venues, including the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory; La Scala in Milan; the Salle Cortot in Paris; and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; and has appeared as soloist with the Bolshoi Theater, Moscow Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Symphony, Russian National, China Symphony, Belgrade Philharmonic, La Scala Philharmonic, Torino Symphony, and Cape Town Symphony orchestras.
The Warsaw Philharmonic was founded in 1901. The 95-member orchestra has made more than 100 tours on five continents. Led by highly regarded Polish conductor Maestro Antoni Wit since 2002, the orchestra has performed at music festivals in Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Moscow, Brussels, Florence, and Athens, among others.
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