On May 1, 2004, *Olga Kern* made a highly acclaimed New York City recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s new venue, Zankel Hall. Eleven days later, on May 12, 2004, in an unprecedented turn of events Olga Kern gave a recital in Isaac Stern Auditorium at the invitation of Carnegie Hall.
Olga Kern’s career began in 2001 when she was awarded the Gold Medal at the Eleventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition –; the first woman to have achieved this distinction in more then 30 years. Since then, Ms. Kern has toured the United States captivating fans and critics alike with her passionately confident musicianship and vivid stage presence. Additional highlights in 2001 included her Boston Pops debut and a performance at the Kennedy Center with noted soprano Reneé Fleming.
Ms. Kern’s busy 2005-2006 schedule will include two recital tours of the United States in the Fall of 2005 and Spring of 2006. Her orchestral engagements will include performances with the Delaware, Houston, Fort Worth, Youngstown and Mobile Symphony Orchestras. Ms. Kern will be returning to the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico in February and she will be making her debut with the Taipei Symphony in June of 2006. Ms. Kern will also make her debut at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in Spring of 2006. In 2006-2007, Ms. Kern will tour the US with the National Philharmonic of Russia, under the direction of Maestro Vladimir Spivakov.
In the 2004-2005 season, her first under the management of Columbia Artists, Ms. Kern returned to the United States for the opening season gala concert with the Utah Symphony and Music Director Keith Lockhart, which was followed by a month long tour with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Maestro Antoni Wit. Ms. Kern embarked on her second tour of the United States in spring of 2005, which included recitals in New York City (Metropolitan Museum of Art) and Atlanta (Spivey Hall). Her 2004-2005 orchestral engagements included the symphony orchestras of Albuquerque, NM, Denver, CO, Charleston, WV, Syracuse, NY, Salt Lake City, UT, Phoenix, AZ and Nashville, TN.
Internationally, Ms. Kern has toured throughout Europe and Russia, and made an extensive tour of South Africa in June of 2002, where she returned to tour again in February of 2005, performing all four Rachmaninov piano concertos and Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini three times over a span of six days, an unprecedented feat undertaken especially for the South African audience. She has toured Alaska with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, also featuring her brother, trumpet virtuoso Vladimir Kern, and in Spring of 2004 toured Austria with the Warsaw Philharmonic led by Artistic and General Director Antoni Wit.
She has been a recent guest artist at several international music festivals, including the Klavier Ruhr and Kissinger Sommer festivals in Germany, the Radio-France Montpellier and Casadesus festivals in France, the Ohrid Festival in Macedonia, and the Busoni Festival in Italy.
In Summer of 2005, Ms. Kern performed Grieg’s Piano Concerto in Aminor with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic in Wiesbaden. Her Summer 2005 festival appearances included the Bravo! Vail Valley, Lancaster and Interlochen Festivals. She also appeared at the Ravinia Festival, performing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro James Conlon. In August of 2005, she made her Hollywood Bowl debut performing Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, under the direction of Maestro Alexander Mickelthwate.
Ms. Kern has performed in many of the world’s most important venues, including the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Symphony Hall in Osaka, La Scala in Milan, Tonhalle in Zurich, and the Châtelet in Paris; she has appeared as soloist with the Bolshoi Theater, Salzburger Festspiele, the Moscow Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Symphony, Russian National, China Symphony, Belgrade Philharmonic, La Scala Philharmonic, Torino Symphony, and Cape Town Symphony Orchestras. She has performed with the Kirov Orchestra under the direction of Valery Gergiev at the Kennedy Center and at the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra led by Christoph Eschenbach.
Ms. Kern was born into a family of musicians with direct links to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov and began studying piano at the age of five. Winner of the first Rachmaninov International Piano Competition when she was seventeen, she is a laureate of eleven international competitions and has toured throughout her native Russia, Europe, and the United States, as well as in Japan, South Africa, and South Korea. The recipient of an honorary scholarship from the President of Russia in 1996, she is a member of Russia’s International Academy of Arts.
Ms. Kern records exclusively for harmonia mundi. Her releases thus far are the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Christopher Seaman (2003), a Rachmaninov recording of Corelli Variations and other transcriptions (2004) and her newest recording, released in May of 2005, contains works by Rachmaninov and Balakirev. She was also featured in the award-winning documentary about the 2001 Cliburn Competition, _Playing on the Edge_.
Olga Kern began her formal training with acclaimed teacher Evgeny Timakin at the Moscow Central School and continued with Sergei Dorensky at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where she was also a postgraduate student. She also studied with Boris Petrushansky at the acclaimed Accademia Pianistica Incontri col Maestro in Imola, Italy.
