FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Ellen McDonald
816.444.0052
Ellen@mershonandmcdonald.com
Park International Center for Music Announces 2018-2019 Season
and Performance Home of the 1900 Building
KANSAS CITY, MO (May 20, 2018) — Stanislav Ioudenitch, Artistic Director of Park International Center for Music (Park ICM), announced today that their 2018-2019 season would kick off in September with a new performance home, the 1900 Building in Mission Woods, Kansas. “For the first time, we will perform our entire season at the 1900 Building as we adore performing in their wonderful spaces,” said Ioudenitch. “Now between their two fabulous concert halls and their delicious restaurant, classical music lovers can have a full evening of fine wines and food, and cap it off with our world-class musicians! We are two hidden jewels just now being discovered in the Kansas City arts public.”
Park ICM has six different offerings at the 1900 Building this coming year for classical music lovers, all of which have incredible musicians coming to Kansas City from the world stage. As a part of the season and for the first time, three-selected guest artists, Vladimir Viardo (piano), Shmuel Ashkenasi (violin), and Dang Thai Son (piano) will be presenting an “educational” component as part of the concert. Those in attendance will get to observe and listen to the interaction between a master artist and a gifted ICM student in the preparation and performance of repertoire performed as part of the evening’s program. It’s an exclusive and rare opportunity to hear these world-class musicians in performance as well as coaching students in a concert format before an audience.
The Park ICM 2018-2019 Performance Series includes:
Park ICM 1900 Series
Featuring Vladimir Viardo, Piano
Friday, September 21, 7:30 p.m., 1900 Building, Mission Woods, Kansas
Pianist Vladimir Viardo will create a rare opportunity for classical music lovers in Kansas City on Friday, September 21th, at the 1900 Building. The New York Times said of Viardo, “Mr. Viardo favors strong contrasts of mood, tempo, tone and dynamics, but he does not carry them to the point of caricature.”
Born in 1949 at Krasnia Polana in the Caucasus, USSR, Vladimir Viardo studied with Irina Naumov at the Gnessin State Musical College and later studied with Lev Naumov at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory where Naumov would describe him as “my number one pupil.” During this time, he was tenured as a soloist by Moscow Philharmonia, the primary music organization of the USSR. After obtaining a doctorate, he was immediately engaged as assistant professor with Naumov at the Conservatory. At 21, Viardo took the third prize and the Prix du Prince Rainier at the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition, and in 1973 first prize at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. He had already launched an impressive global career when his travel visa was mysteriously revoked. For nearly thirteen years, Viardo was a virtual prisoner of the Iron Curtain. During this closed period, he developed new horizons in his artistic achievements, vastly enlarging his repertoire, eventually including 37 concertos. Only when Mikhail Gorbachev rose to power in the Soviet Union was freedom to travel restored, and in 1987 Viardo was permitted to accept engagements in Germany and the United States. After returning to the West, his international career resumed with several concerts at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Salle Pleyel, and the Concertgebouw, and he has appeared as soloist with most of the important conductors including Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Vladimir Spivakov, Dmitri Kitayenko, Eduardo Mata, Anatoly Zatin, Kirill Kondrashin, and Krzysztof Penderecki.
He joined the University of North Texas College of Music faculty as artist-in residence in 1989. An extraordinary and celebrated teacher, his international roster of students includes young artists from Eastern Europe, as well as Portugal, Spain, Mexico, South Africa, and the United States. Viardo’s master classes are much in demand throughout the world and his name appears in the book The Most Wanted Piano Teachers in the USA. Park ICM is thrilled to have this world-class master on stage to coach an ICM student right before the audience in this extraordinary educational opportunity. His performance will include Piano transcriptions of Schubert, Lieder by Liszt, and Debussy’s Second book of prelude.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXTUZvOoz9M
Park ICM 1900 Series
Featuring Shmuel Ashkenasi, Violin
Thursday, October 11, 7:30 p.m., 1900 Building, Mission Woods, Kansas
Born in Tel-Aviv in 1941, Shmuel Ashkenasi began his musical training at the Musical Academy of Tel-Aviv studying with legendary theater Ilona Feher. He arrived in the United States while still young and studied with Efrem Zimbalist at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Ashkenasi won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 1961 and in 1962 captured top prizes at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Russia, the Merriweather Post Competition in Washington, D.C., and the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels, Belgium. He was 21 years old. As a soloist, he has toured the Soviet Union twice and plays concerts every year throughout Europe, Israel and the Far East. He has performed with famed American orchestras and many of the orchestras of Europe. In 1969, he formed the famed Vermeer Quartet and remained its first violinist throughout the quartet’s 39-year career, gaining a reputation as one of the world’s outstanding chamber musicians.
Ashkenasi is also a noted teacher, currently holding posts of Professor of Violin at Bard College Conservatory of Music, Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts, and the Curtis Institute of Music. Shmuel Ashkenasi will be in concert with Lolita Lisovskaya-Sayevich, Park University Collaborative Artist, at the 1900 Building. Their program will include Sibelius’ 5 pieces for violin and piano Op.81, and other works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSX11xaBAT0
Park ICM Distinguished Alumni Series
Presenting Behzod Abduraimov, Piano
Saturday, January 19, 2018, 7:30 p.m., 1900 Building, Mission Woods, Kansas
Described by The New York Times as the “master of all he surveys” and with The Washington Post noting to “keep your ear on this one,” Abduraimov’s captivating performances continue to receive international praise. Following his debut success at Carnegie Hall in 2015, recent seasons have seen Abduraimov work with leading orchestras worldwide. An award-winning recording artist, he released his first concerto disc in 2014 on Decca Classics which features Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No.3 and Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No.1 with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai under Juraj Valčuha. His debut recital CD won both the Choc de Classica and the Diapason Découverte. Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 1990, Abduraimov began to play the piano at the age of five as a pupil of Tamara Popovich at Uspensky State Central Lyceum in Tashkent. He is an alumnus of Park University’s International Center for Music where he studied with Stanislav Ioudenitch, and now serves as the ICM’s artist-in-residence.
Abduraimov’s program, titled “Love and Death,” will include: Wagner-Liszt Isolde’s Liebestod; Liszt B minor Sonata / Prokofiev Roméo and Juliet
http://59productions.co.uk/project/behzod-abduraimov/
https://www.harrisonparrott.com/artists/behzod-abduraimov
Park ICM Masters in Concert
Presenting Ben Sayevich, Violin & Lolita Lisovskaya-Sayevich, Piano
Saturday, February 9, 2019, 7:30 p.m., 1900 Building, Mission Woods, Kansas
Violinist Ben Sayevich has established himself as one of the most distinguished violinists and teachers of his generation. Born in Kaunas, Lithuania, he studied violin in Vilnius from the age of 6 at the Churlonis School for the Performing Arts. At 12 he immigrated to Israel with his family and studied with Felix Andrievsky. At age 21, after serving in the Israeli Army, he went to the United States to study with Dorothy DeLay, later moving to the New England Conservatory to continue studies with her (1981-85) and with Eric Rosenblith (1985-87). He is a recipient of the prestigious artist diploma from the New England Conservatory, where he was Rosenblith’s teaching assistant.
Sayevich has concertized extensively throughout North America, Europe and the Far East and has appeared on radio and television as a soloist and chamber musician. He is featured as the soloist in a recording of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” with the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra. At the New England Conservatory he was chosen to play the Violin Concerto by Alban Berg for the celebration of the composer’s centenary. Sayevich’s interpretation carries the tradition that comes down directly from the composer, through his work on the piece with the late Louis Krasner, the commissioner, dedicatee and the violinist at the work’s premiere.
His extensive activities with orchestras have included the concertmaster posts at the Kansas City Camerata and the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, with both of which he made numerous concerto appearances, including Violin Concertos by Vieuxtemps, Glazunov, Mozart and Beethoven. He was also concertmaster of the Heidelberg Chamber Orchestra during a five-week world tour of Japan, Singapore and Canada.
Sayevich also maintains a vigorous schedule as chamber musician. He is a founding member of the Park Piano Trio, established at Park University in 2006, and is violinist of the London-based Rosamunde Piano Trio. With the Rosamunde Trio he has performed widely in Europe, including appearances on BBC Radio London, Irish Public Radio in Cork and the Abbado Festival Bologna. He is also a founding member of Quartet Accorda, which began in the 1990s and was officially incorporated in 2002.
Sayevich has taught at the University of Kansas, the Grieg Academy in Bergen, Norway, at the New England Conservatory, the Hartt School of Music and the Yellow Barn Music Festival, in Vermont.
Sayevich is joined in concert by his wife, Lolita Lisovskaya-Sayevich, a reputed concert pianist in her own right. Originally from Uzbekistan, Lisovskaya-Sayevich is part of the impressive faculty at Park International Center for Music. Serving as Director of Collaborative Piano, she works with students during the rehearsal process and accompanies them on piano during performances. Lolita was hired by Park ICM, her husband Ben said, because, “she had a special talent for musical collaboration . . . when you make music together with other people, you have to have a very similar imagination.” Lolita was born into a Tashkent musical family and began studying piano at the age of four. She won the first prize at the Chopin International Piano Competition. She entered the Tchaikovsky Special Music School and two years later was accepted to the Tchaikovsky Moscow Conservatory under the tutelage of Vera Cornosteaeva, with whom she continued postgraduate study. She also studied with Stanislav Ioudenitch at Park International Center for Music. Lolita has played as a soloist with orchestras all over the world.
The concert program includes: Beethoven’s Sonata a Kreutzer, Op. 47.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s4Y6qKCgFg
Park ICM 1900 Series
Featuring Dang Thai Son, Piano
Saturday, March 23, 2019, 7:30 p.m., 1900 Building, Mission Woods, Kansas
Called “a genuine musician,” by Isaac Stern, Dang Thai Son is one of the great outstanding musicians of our time. Born in Vietnam in 1958, this Vietnamese-Canadian classical pianist propelled to the forefront of the musical world in October 1980 when we was awarded the First Prize and Gold Medal of the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Poland. It was also the first time that a top international competition was won by an Asian pianist.
Dang began studying piano in Hanoi with his mother, Madame Thai Thi Lien, then professor of music at the Vietnam National Academy of Music. Discovered by a Russian pianist, Isaac Katz, on a visit to Vietnam in 1974, Son pursued his advanced training at the Moscow Conservatory in Russia with Vladimir Natanson and Dmitri Bashkirov.
Since winning the Chopin Competition, his international career has taken him to more than 40 countries and into such renowned concert halls as Lincoln Center (New York), Barbican Center (London), Salle Pleyel (Paris), Herculessaal (Munich), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Opera House (Sydney), and Suntory Hall (Tokyo). He has been featured with famed orchestras and world-class conductors. He was a visiting professor at the Kunitachi Music College in Tokyo, and he teaches as Guest Professor at the Université de Montreal in Canada. After over 30 years of teaching, Dang Thai Son has agreed for the first time to join a piano faculty! He will be Professor at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. His appointment will start with the 2018-2019 academic year.
On his program is Schubert Sonata in C Major D.840 as well as piano works by Chopin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6L9kC3Ww5s
Park ICM Masters in Concert
Presents Daniel Veis, Cello, and Helena Veisova, Piano
Friday, April 5th, 2019, 7:30 p.m., 1900 Building, Mission Woods, Kansas
The “Park ICM Masters in Concert Series” continues with Professor Daniel Veis and Helena Veisova in Concert on Friday, April 5, 7:30 p.m. Daniel Veis has been widely recognized as “the finest Czech cellist” since winning the Silver Medal at the prestigious 1978 Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow. Prior to winning the Tchaikovsky, he won the First Prize at the 1976 Prague Spring International Competition. He started his musical studies in his native Prague, after which he proceeded to the Moscow Conservatory furthering his studies with the famous Natalia Shakhovskaya, graduating with full distinction. Since 1979 he has performed regularly as a soloist with many major orchestras in such respected venues as Avery Fisher Hall NY, Royal Albert Hall London, Orchard Hall Tokyo, Auditori de Barcelona, Auditorio de Madrid, and numerous others. He has worked with world famous conductors, namely, Sir Charles Mackerras, S. Baudo, Y.P. Tortelier, G. Delogu, J.P. Saraste and V. Gergiev. In addition to his solo career he is also a member of the Rosamunde Trio, an ensemble of international repute, together with British pianist Martino Tirimo and violinist Ben Sayevich. He plays a Joseph Cavaleri instrument, Genoa, 1740. Daniel joined the faculty at Park University in 2010.
Helena Veisova started her musical studies at age six and at twelve she performed with her father, the violin virtuoso Vaclav Snitil. Her professional career had its natural origin in the musical environment of her family. She graduated from the Academy of Performing Arts, Prague, where at 14 she studied with the famous Jan Panenka. She subsequently started her permanent co-operation with her former Trio partner and future husband, Daniel Veis. They appeared together in numerous concerts in France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Russia among others. Helena has performed on live Radio and TV broadcasts, and has made numerous Radio and CD recordings. According to the prestigious journal The Strad, “Helena is a pianist who has an excellent command, endowed with a supreme musicality and perfect coordination when playing with other musicians.”
Daniel and Helena’s program includes works by Beethoven, Schumann, Martinu and Dvorak, and will be held in the Rose Theater of the 1900 Building, Mission Woods, Kansas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWLNvEjCKcQ
ABOUT PARK INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR MUSIC – Park ICM was established (www.park.edu) at Park University in 2003. This All-Steinway School trains and educates the next generation of accomplished musicians in a focused and creative atmosphere with an international faculty of renowned excellence. Park ICM offers degree, certificate and diploma programs at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Our courses of study are focused in the areas of performance in violin, viola, cello and piano. At the core of all ICM programs is one-on-one studio instruction providing vital interactions between the student and master faculty, now in its 14th season. This extremely exclusive music academy selects just 30 students each year to study in the historic European apprenticeship tradition. Each student receives individual studio instruction twice weekly. Park’s amazing campus provides focused and uninterrupted practice time 24-hours daily in a serene and extremely supportive environment. The international faculty’s incredible network of acquaintances throughout the world provide for master classes with renowned guest artists in each performance degree. The European tradition demands public concerts as part of student training that creates performances alongside faculty in sublime intimate concerts throughout Kansas City. Ultimately, the Park ICM master faculty mentors inspiring apprentice musicians and trains them in music and performance. The master faculty also coaches musicianship and career development so that the students will become award-winning musicians, traveling the world and entertaining the most discerning music lovers across all continents.
Visit www.icm.Park.edu/events/ for more information about Park ICM’s 2018-2019 performance season. High-resolution photos of the performers can be obtained by contacting the Park ICM Director, Roger Kugler, at Roger.Kugler@park.edu or 816-584-6484 office.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Parking
Parking at the 1900 Building is free and readily available.
Ticket Prices and Student Discounts
At the 1900 Building, Student tickets are available for $10 (with valid ID, one ticket per ID). General admission tickets are $30. All tickets may be purchased in advance at 1900bldg.com or at the door prior to the performances based on availability. The Box Office opens 30-minutes prior to all performances.
Social Media
Receive updates by joining Park ICM Facebook at www.facebook.com/ICMPark and following @ICM_Park on Twitter.
Park International Center for Music
2018-2019 Season at a Glance. All performances held at the 1900 Building.
- Friday, September 21, 2018, 7:30 p.m., Vladimir Viardo, Piano
- Thursday, October 11, 2018, 7:30 p.m., Schmuel Ashkenasi, Violin
- Saturday, January 19, 2019, 7:30 p.m., Behzod Abduraimov, Piano,
- Saturday, February 9, 2019, 7:30 p.m., Ben Sayevich, Violin, and Lolita Lisovskaya-Sayevich, Piano
- Saturday, March 23, 2019, 7:30 p.m., Dang Thai Son, Piano
- Friday, April 5, 2019, 7:30 p.m., Daniel Veis, Cello, and Helena Veisova, Piano
Please direct all media inquiries to Ellen McDonald: 816-444-0052 or ellen@mershonandmcdonald.com
