Friday, February 7, 2025
7:30 p.m.
Graham Tyler Memorial Chapel, 8700 NW River Park Drive, Parkville, MO

The Orchestra of the International Center for Music will present its annual Valentine’s concert at the gorgeous Graham Tyler Memorial Chapel at Park University. The program will be under the direction of guest conductor Jason Seber, known for his inviting and engaging approach on and off the podium.

Jason Seber

Jason Seber is known for his inviting and engaging approach on and off the podium. A strong believer in the eclectic experiences which today’s symphony orchestras offer their communities, he strives to make music of many genres and styles accessible, relevant, and meaningful to diverse audiences across the country.

Seber has conducted many leading American orchestras, including the Colorado, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Nashville, National, San Diego, and St. Louis Symphony, the Louisville and Minnesota Orchestra, the Cincinnati Pops, and the Buffalo Philharmonic, among others. Upcoming performances include debuts with the North Carolina Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, and Phoenix Symphony. Seber has conducted over 20 full feature films and has had the pleasure of performing with a wide range of artists including Patti Austin, Mason Bates, Andrew Bird, Boyz II Men, Jinjoo Cho, Melissa Etheridge, Ben Folds, Cody Fry, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Indigo Girls, Paul Jacobs, Wynonna Judd, Lyle Lovett, Katharine McPhee, Natalie Merchant, Brian Stokes Mitchell, My Morning Jacket, Leslie Odom Jr., Aoife O’Donovan, Pink Martini, Ben Rector, Stephen Schwartz, Doc Severinsen, Conrad Tao, Bobby Watson, and Joyce Yang.

Ilya Shmukler

“Shmukler is a volcano”; “the name of Ilya Shmukler should be remembered” is how the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described this pianist after his triumph at the Concours Géza Anda 2024 in Zurich, Switzerland, where he won four major awards in addition to the First Prize.

When he was 3, Ilya’s mother found him jumping on the bed and singing Robertino Loreti’s “Jamaica” beautifully. It was important to his parents, however, to raise their boy as a well-rounded person, so his early years were also spent with school, table tennis, and ballroom dancing before focusing on music.

Since then, Ilya Shmukler made solo appearances in Europe and North America, and performed with such artists as Mikhail Pletnev, Paavo Järvi, Marin Alsop, Nicholas McGegan, Junichi Hirokami, Anne-Marie McDermott, Anton Nel and David Radzynski. Collaborations include the Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich, Musikkollegium Winterthur, the Mariinsky, Fort Worth Symphony, Sendai Philharmonic, Kansas City Chamber, Bayer-Symphoniker, and New Music Orchestras.

To have become a finalist and the recipient of the award for the “Best Performance of a Mozart Concerto” at the 2022 Cliburn Competition is a milestone in his career, as is his New York debut as a winner of the Carnegie Weill Recital Hall Debut Audition in 2022.

An alumnus of the Moscow State Conservatoire under the guidance of Elena Kuznetsova and Sergey Kuznetsov, Ilya continues his studies at Park University (USA) with Stanislav Ioudenitch.