February 26: South Carolina's Chamber Music Festival's Piano Trios in Lake City

Thursday 26, 7:30 pm 
Bean Market National Museum, Lake City, SC // free admission
Piano Trios - music by Haydn, Rachmaninov and Brahms
Qiao Solomon, violin (China)
Dusan Vukajlovic, cello (Serbia)
Paolo André Gualdi, piano (Italy)

February 23: South Carolina Chamber Music Festival's Lecture Recital

Monday 23, 6:00 pm

FMU Performing Arts Center - black box // free admission
Lecture recital - Forgotten Russian Piano Music: Sonatas of Anatoly Aleksandrov
Irina Pevzner, piano (Ukraine/Latvia)

February 8: Hartsville- Coker Concert Association Presents Pianist Michael Gurt

On Sunday, Feb. 8, 2015, the Hartsville-Coker Concert Association will present a solo recital from renowned pianist Michael Gurt in Watson Theater on the Coker College campus. The program features two major works, Schumann’s Kreisleriana and Rachmaninoff’s second piano sonata, among other works by Clementi and Villa Lobos.

Gurt is the Paula Garvey Manship Distinguished Professor of Piano at Louisiana State University. He also serves as Piano Mentor at the Hot Springs Music Festival and is the head of the piano department at the Sewanee Summer Music Center. In 1982, he won first prize in the prestigious Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition.

Gurt has performed with orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Capetown Symphony, the China National Symphony Orchestra, and the Natal Philharmonic Orchestra in Durban, South Africa. He has made solo appearances in Alice Tully Hall in New York, Ambassador Auditorium in Los Angeles, Orchestra Hall in Detroit, City Hall in Hong Kong, the Victorian Arts Center in Melbourne, Australia, Baxter Hall in Capetown, South Africa, and the Attaturk Cultural Center in Istanbul, Turkey. He holds degrees from the University of Michigan and the Juilliard School.

“Having Michael Gurt come to Hartsville is an incredible opportunity to expose our community to a giant in the piano world,” said Ryan Smith, assistant professor of music at Coker. “Michael plays with incredible muscularity and stamina, and his program of Schumann’s Kreisleriana and Rachmaninoff’s second piano sonata will demonstrate his enviable skills.” Gurt will also work with Coker’s piano students during his stay in Hartsville.

The concert is the third in the 2014-15 Hartsville-Coker Concert Series. Admission is $25 for adults and free for students under 18 or with a Coker ID. The final concert of the season will be held on March 16 at Center Theater when the HCCA hosts Mithril, an Irish folk group, in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day.

For more information, contact HCCA toll-free at 866-821-4266 or HCCA@coker.edu.

October 12: St. John's First Annual Young Artist Series Begins

Series Begins October 12

6pm 

The young artist concert series is a venue for the emerging musical artist. Each performer is already enrolled in his or her field and is pursuing studies at the University of South Carolina School of Music or is a recent graduate.

All concerts are free and open to the public. However a donation is accepted as the performers receive no remuneration for their concerts, other than that which is received at the door. Concerts are held in the Parish Hall at 6pm with an informal reception following each concert.

 Susan Zhang presents a piano concert on October 12. She made her orchestral debut at the age of 12 with the Augusta Symphony. She has since been featured as a soloist with the South Carolina Philharmonic and the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra. She has performed worldwide and was a prizewinner in several international competitions. In the summer of 2014, she was featured as guest artist in the Southeastern Piano Festival's Alumni Celebration and Piano Extravaganza concerts.

She is currently pursuing at USC a Graduate Certificate in Performance at USC with Marina Lomazov and Joseph Rackers.

September 28: Pianist Ko-Eun Yi opens Chamber Music Series in Florence

International award winning pianist opens Chamber Music Series

The first concert of the 2014-15 Chamber Music series at the Art Trail Gallery will be Sunday September 28 at 5PM. The opening concert will feature Ko-Eun Yi, pianist and winner of the 2013 Concert Artist Guild Competition. The approximately one hour concert will be followed by a meet the artist reception. Tickets are just $10 and available at the Art Trail Gallery, 185 W. Evans in downtown Florence. The program will include the Bach Prelude and Fugue in G, Carter Catenaires, Ravel  Jeux d’eau, and Chopin 24 Preludes.

Korean pianist Ko-Eun Yi, a winner of the 2013 CAG Victor Elmaleh Competition, has earned praise for playing with “élan and fire and a surplus of bravura technique” (Cincinnati Enquirer). She has garnered numerous top prizes in her young career, with recent successes at the 2010 World Piano Competition in Cincinnati and the 2011 Wideman International Piano Competition in Jackson, Mississippi. The Washington Post applauded her recent debut recital in DC: “a masterful technician ... Her finger-work was immaculate, inner voices were keenly drawn out, and there was no lack of power when needed.” 

At the October 2013 CAG competition, Ko-Eun was also awarded the Victor & Sono Elmaleh Piano Prize, and her 2014-15 itinerary includes her February 2015 New York recital debut at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall on the CAG New York Series.  Other upcoming engagements resulting from her CAG victory include concerto engagements with the Dupage Symphony Orchestra near Chicago and the Roswell Symphony in New Mexico, as well as recitals for the Trust Performing Arts Center in Harrisburg, PA.

Additional recent concerto highlights for Ko-Eun include performances with the Barcelona, Jerusalem, and Boston Symphony Orchestras, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Aspen Concert Orchestra, working with such conductors as Lawrence Foster, Leon Fleisher, and Christopher Wilkins. She toured South America playing Saint-Saëns concerto No. 2 with the New England Youth Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Zander

Born in Seoul, Korea, Ko-Eun Yi began her piano studies at the age of three. She earned her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees at The Juilliard School studying with Jerome Lowenthal and completed her Professional Studies degree with André-Michel Schub at Manhattan School of Music. She is now pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Stony Brook University with Christina Dahl.

September 4: FMU Artist Series Present Evgeny Rivkin

FMU Artist Series
Thursday, 4 September 2014, 7:30 pm
Performing Arts Center, Downtown Florence

Evgeny Rivkin, piano

Evgeny Rivkin was born in Russia and earned his master’s and doctoral degrees at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where he studied with Professor Evgeny Malinin. He has been the recipient of many major awards, including top prizes in the USSR National Piano Competition in 1977, the Sixth International  Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow, the Bayerishe Rundfunk Competition in Munich, 1985, as well as the L. MacMahon International Competition in Lawton, Oklahoma. He has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in  Italy, France, Hungary, Germany, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Yugoslavia, USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and other countries in live performances as well as radio and TV broadcasts, always earning enthusiastic praise for his exciting pianism and sensitive artistry.

Mr. Rivkin has made symphonic appearances and presented solo recitals in many world-famous halls, such as the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory and Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, Great Hall of St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society, Hercules-Saal in Munich, Gewandhaus Hall in Leipzig, Wagner Hall in Riga, Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Carnegie Hall in New York and others.

His repertoire includes all the keyboard concertos of J.S.Bach, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff and the piano concertos of Schumann, Liszt, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Brahms, Grieg, etc., and the major solo literature from the Classical and Romantic eras.

Mr. Rivkin has recorded for A-RAM and Melodiya labels in Russia, Sintez records of Latvia, and in the United States, ACA Recordings. “Treat yourself to this fine rendition,” wrote Fanfare magazine about his recording of Tchaikovsky’s  G major Piano Sonata and The Seasons, adding that Rivkin brings out the best of this music.

Mr. Rivkin has been a Professor of Piano at the University of Georgia since 1995.