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From the President

By the time you receive the March Newsletter, the Concert Tour of Konstantin Shamray will be well underway with him having performed already in Sydney and a number of Sydney suburbs: Bayview, Killara, Roseville, Bellevue Hill and Hunters Hill. He will also have given the world première of a new Australian Piano Concerto with the Sydney Youth Orchestra. The composer was Daniel Rojas and the performance took place in the City Recital Hall, Angel Place. He will also have given the Open Concerto Concerts in Hobart and Launceston with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra conducted by their chief conductor, Sebastian Lang-Lessing. He will still have many concerts to go with the last one being in early July.
We have already begun to prepare the Application/Audition Book for the 2012 Competition. This booklet will be launched in August of this year and will then be on our website. For the 2008 Competition, 95% of applicants downloaded their application forms from the Internet.
Commencing in August, we will have Tatiana Kolesova on tour and she will have concerts in many Sydney suburbs, including Mosman, Roseville, Manly, Bayview, The Art Gallery of NSW and in the Blue Mountains and in country towns like Tyalgum, Tamworth, Bathurst, Orange, Albury, Wagga Wagga, Coffs Harbour, Yass, Wollongong and Batemans Bay. In Queensland, she will visit Cairns, Yungaburra, Cooktown, Port Douglas and there will be time to visit the Great Barrier Reef. In Victoria, she will perform in Horsham. We certainly look forward to hearing this outstanding young pianist who won the hearts of many with her performances in the 2008 Competition.

Claire Dan AM, OBE

What they are doing now

Martina Filjak was awarded the First Prize and several special prizes, including Best Performances of a Sonata by Beethoven and Contemporary Music at the Cleveland International Piano Competition. She has also received 50 engagements in the USA in the next two years – a CD with Naxos and a debut recital in Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall) which took place on 14 December 2009.
Shortly afterwards, she was awarded the Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli Prize chosen and voted by the audience at the Piano Festival in Eppan. Performances have been in Musikverein (Vienna, Austria), Teatro Carlo Felice (Genova, Italy), Carnegie Hall, Palau de la Musica (Barcelona, Spain) and performances with the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, the Zagreb Philharmonic, the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra, the Torino Philharmonic and others. Concertos being performed are: Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 2, Schumann Piano Concerto and Bartók Piano Concerto No 3. She will also record the first of two CDs for Naxos featuring 20 Sonatas by Soler.

Sergei Saratovsky is continuing his studies at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) in the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) Program. He has recently given a solo recital as part of MusicFest Vancouver. In November and December 2009 and February and March 2010 he is embarking on a tour of Eastern Canada, consisting of 32 solo recitals organised by Jeunesses Musicales of Canada. In December 2009 he gave a recital in Petrozavodsk, Russia.
Sergei was born in Karelia, Russia. He received his university training at the Petrozavodsk State Conservatory of Music, graduating with a Bachelors Degree in Piano Performance in 2004. In 2002 Sergei became a resident of Canada. He completed a Masters Degree in Piano Performance with Alexander Tselyakov at Brandon University, where in 2006 he received the gold medal for academic excellence and graduated with Greatest Distinction.

Charlie Albright has received the prestigious Gilmore Young Artist Award in 2010 and in July 2009, he received the Elizabeth Leonskaya Special Award, Vendome Prize International Piano Competition and in October gave a Third Concert with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and in November gave a concert at Salle Cortot, Paris. His 2009-2010 concert season has included concerts in Los Angeles, six performances in Michigan , solo and Grand Rapids Symphony and Olympia Symphony and Trinity Church, Wall Street. Charlie has also has completed his Associate of Science Degree at the Centralia College while in high school and is currently a sophomore at Harvard College majoring in Economics at the same time pursuing a Masters in Piano Performance at NEC as well as his activities as a concert pianist.

In October 2008, Sean Chen was the First Prize-Winner of the Juilliard Concerto Competition performing Ginastera’s Piano Concerto No 1. In November 2008, he gave subsequent performance of this concerto with the Juilliard Orchestra conducted by David Atherton. In January 2009, he performed Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Rachmaninov with the New West Symphony under Boris Brott. At the Cleveland Piano Competition, he was awarded the Prize for an American Work composed after 1944. In October 2009, he had a solo recital in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Tatiana Kolesova has had a number of concerto appearances in November 2009 in different places including Moscow - Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 3, Kharkov Beethoven Piano Concerto No 4, and also Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No 1, Mozart Piano Concerto No 23 KV488, Prokofiev Piano Concerto No 5 and Rachmaninov Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

In May 2009 “Pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk makes stunning debut with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra” performing the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No 2 in G Major. Lloyd Dykk made the following comments “….. was in the hot seat, but the only heat was in the performance: stunning double octaves, ripper technique and direct emotional address. There probably hasn’t been a pianist like this on the scene since Vladimir Horowitz.” He made his debut with the Sydney Symphony in November 2009 playing the Piano Concertos of Prokofiev (Nos 1, 3 and 5) and also recording Nos 2 and 4.

The recording made by Konstantin Shamray at the Ruhr Festival in 2009 has now been released. The whole program including encores was put on this CD. The concert itself received rave reviews and some extracts from these extensive reviews are contained in another part of the Newsletter. There are works by Schumann - Carnaval Op 9, Scriabin - Étude Op 2 No 1, Two Préludes Op 27 and Three Préludes Op 65, Prokofiev - Sonata No 6. Encores: Wagner - arranged Liszt Spinning Song and Isolde’s Liebestod.
In January 2010, he recorded for the Naxos Label the 18 works that comprise Op 72 of Tchaikovsky. These were the last piano works that Tchaikovsky composed. In February 2010, he visited Siberia again and performed the Piano Concerto in G Major by Ravel and the Third Piano Concerto by Prokofiev.

In September 2009 the Saguaro Piano Trio, Luanne Homzy, violin, Peter Myers, cello and John Chen, piano won the First Prize in the First Hamburg Chamber Music Competition. The Prize was €15,000. In addition they won the Prize for the Best Performance of a Work by Brahms (donated by the Hamburg Brahms Society - this prize was €1,000 and also a CD recording and concert opportunities in Europe).
John is still working on his Doctorate in Musical Arts at the University of Southern California. He has performed Piano Quintets at the Maco International Music Festival with the Tang Quartet from Singapore. In December 2009 he performed Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. In August 2010 he will perform Beethoven Piano Concerto No 5 with the Sydney Symphony conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Chamber Music Artists for 2012 Competition

As members of the audience at the 2008 Competition will be well aware, that the Chamber Music Stage of Stage IV was of a very high standard and for the first time, Competition CD’s Volume 2 had four piano trios: Beethoven - Opus No 97 “Archduke”, Brahms – Op 8, Ravel – a minor and Mendelssohn No 1.

We are very pleased to announce that the same Chamber Music players will be performing in the 2012 Competition:

Helen Ayers is a Doctoral graduate from the University of Melbourne, where she studied with Mark Mogilevsky and completed research into the music of the Romanian violinist and composer George Enescu. Alongside her degree Helen previously held a full-time position with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, has performed as in principal positions with Orchestra Victoria. and has toured with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.

In 2007, Helen held teaching positions at Queens College and at the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Music, where she was Acting Head of Strings. Helen has tutored for the Australian Youth Orchestra’s Young Australian Concert Artists and Young Symphonists Programs, continuing a long association which started when she toured as a student with AYO to Asia, New Zealand, Japan, Europe and America.

As a member of the Seraphim Trio, Helen has performed at various festivals in Vienna, New Caledonia, and at home in Townsville, Mildura, Castlemaine, Port Fairy, the Barossa Valley and the Mornington Peninsula.

Other highlights include performances at International Chamber Music Competitions in Melbourne, Osaka and Trieste and several broadcasts for Musica Viva, ABC Classic FM, 2MBS-FM and 3MBS-FM.

Helen’s solo repertoire includes the Sibelius, Beethoven triple and Brahms double concertos. Her previous teachers have been Alice Waten, William Hennessy and Beryl Kimber.

Timothy Nankervis is currently a member of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra having taken up a position in 2004. Previous to this, he was studying music performance as a Doctoral candidate at Melbourne University. In 2002 Tim graduated from Melbourne University with a Master of Music Degree studying with Nelson Cook. He completed his Bachelor of Music Degree in 1998 with Honours at the Australian Institute of Music under Lois Simpson. After being awarded a Big Brother Music Award in 1995, Tim studied with William Pleeth and Raphael Wallfisch in London. In 1999 he took up a scholarship to study at the Tchaikovsky National Academy of Music in Kiev under Vadim Chervov. Tim’s other teachers include Georg Pedersen, Denise Lawrence and David Berlin.

Tim has won numerous awards for cello performance and chamber music and is a member of the acclaimed Seraphim Trio. In 2004 and again in 2008, Tim performed with his colleague from the Trio, violinist Helen Ayres, in the Sydney International Piano Competition to provide competitors with a piano trio for the Chamber Music component of the Competition.

In 2000, Tim attended the Australian National Academy of Music and was one of two winners selected to perform with Orchestra Victoria. He has performed widely throughout Australia as a soloist and has broadcasted regularly for the ABC and 2MBS-FM. Tim is also an active chamber musician performing with the Sydney Soloists and is a member of the Linden String Trio.

Dimity Hall is privileged to enjoy an exciting career centred on her love of chamber music.As a member of both the Australia Ensemble (Resident at UNSW), and of the Goldner String Quartet, she has participated in many highly acclaimed recordings and f’estival appearances, as well as frequent national and international tours.

In 2002 Dimity made her solo debut with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, performing VaughanWilliams’ The Lark Ascending. Her performances lead to an invitation to record the work for ABC Classics. In 2004 she appeared as soloist in the SSO’s Masters Series performing Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins with colleague Dene Olding. In 2008 she performed as soloist with the Canberra Symphony Orchestra. Dimity graduated with a Bachelorof Music degree from the Sydney Conservatorium before completing two years of postgraduate study with Herman Krebbers in Amsterdam on a Netherlands Government Scholarship. During that time she toured and recorded with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under major conductors and performed in recital in the Concertgebouw Kleine Zaal as prize-winner of the coveted Zilveren Vriendenkrans Award.

She returned to Australia in 1989 as Principal Second Violin with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and has been that orchestra’s Guest Concertmaster and soloist on several occasions.Dimity’s association with the Australia Ensemble began in 1986 with frequent guest appearances. Her outstanding contributions led to the creation of a seventh core position from I992 as part of the Ensemble’s diverse programs.

As a member of the Goldner String Quartet, Dimity has undertaken many special projects including the complete Beethoven Quartet Cycle for Musica Viva, a major retrospective of 20th Century Quartets,a national tour with didgeridoo artist William Barton, and several appearances at London’s Wigmore Hall and prestigious UK and European Festivals. Dimity was a member of the Jury of the 2003 lnternational Chamber Music Competition. In 2009 a major series of concerts was held for the inaugural season of the Melbourne Recital Centre.

Julian Smiles is well-known to Australian audiences as one of the country’s leading cellists. As a member of the Australia Ensemble, the University of New South Wales’ acclaimed resident chamber music group and of the Goldner String Quartet, he has a busy career performing and recording in Australia and internationally.
As a student with Nelson Cooke at the Canberra School of Music, Julian rapidly established a position of prominence among young Australian musicians with successes in various major competitions and concerto appearances with Youth and Symphony Orchestras around Australia.

In 1989 Julian was appointed Principal Cellist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, a position he held for three years, and with the move to Sydney became increasingly active and recognized as a chamber musician. During 1990 he also undertook advanced studies as a member of János Starker’s class at Indiana University. Julian accepted an invitation to join the Australia Ensemble in l99l. Over the last few years Julian has had frequent invitations to perform as Guest Principal Cellist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. He has tutored gifted young musicians individually and as chamber groups at the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne, and for the Australian Youth Orchestra, and held teaching positions at the Sydney Conservatorium and Canberra School of Music.

In 2007 he was a member of the Jury for the Fifth Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition and 2008 sees him appearing as soloist with the Canberra Symphony and Ku-Ring-Gai Philharmonic Orchestras, and at chamber music festivals at Camden Haven, McLaren Vale, Townsville, the Hunter Valley, Bangalow and in the French Alps.

Konstantin Shamray Review - Ruhr Festival

Konstantin Shamray and three other younger generation pianists proved their pianistic qualities in Düsseldorf. Will Konstantin Shamray be a star in the future? This question [sic] is YES – as accepted by many of the audience at the end of his concert in the Schumann Hall in Dusseldorf.

Some were reminded of the then young Polini – without frills but with bravura and musical interpretation as seen in Schumann Carnaval Op 9 and in the Prokofiev 6th Piano Sonata which had everyone paying attention to his performance. Even one of the agents of Sony Records travelled from London to hear Konstantin’s concert. It is quite possible that he will receive a contract from them. Konstantin proves his piano skills as did the three other artists who participated in concerts on the same weekend in Düsseldorf. The Managers’ judgment is that they will, without doubt, belong to the great names of tomorrow.

Sensitive Relevance
It is not by accident but it must be proof that there is excellent teaching, not only in Russia but also in the Far East (Asia), including China (Jue Wang) and Japan, as three Japanese pianists were selected to perform in the Ruhr Festival. Mizika Kano, last year, won the Schumann Competition and proved his lyrical qualities in works by Mendelssohn and Schumann… Shamray enters the stage disarmingly and bashfully and then moves to sit upright at the Steinway piano. He concentrates on his performance without trace of eccentricity or unnecessary movement and unlike some young pianists, he concentrates solely on the music score and his performance. His fingers do many exciting tricks, which one can hear immediately in the Beethoven Piano Sonata Op 101. He plays with strong hands to achieve a big tone without roughness or forcing of the sound. He mixes strength and energy without attacking the piano. He controls the contrasts in dynamics in the music with precision. He performed Schumann’s Carnaval astonishingly and using a different technique, flexible rhythm and also faultlessly in the softer passages. Pauses are treated without hesitation.

Prognosis: I am quite sure that he will be asked to perform in Düsseldorf again.

With Dynamite in his Fingertips - Michael-Georg Müller - 22 June 2009 - Neuer Ruhr Zeitung