The 2nd International Rachmaninoff Russian Music Festival presents "Briliant Jewels & Rare Gems," a piano recital featuring works of Rachmaninoff, Glazunov & Arensky performed by virtuoso pianist Vassily Primakov.
In recent years, Primakov has been hailed as a pianist of world class importance. Gramophone wrote that “Primakov’s empathy with Chopin’s spirit could hardly be more complete,” and the American Record Guide stated: “Since Gilels, how many pianists have the right touch? In Chopin, no one currently playing sounds as good as this! This is a great Chopin pianist.”
His first piano studies were with his mother, Marina Primakova. He entered Moscow’s Central Special Music School at age 11 as a pupil of Vera Gornostaeva, and at 17 came to New York to pursue studies at the Juilliard School with the noted pianist, Jerome Lowenthal. For the next four years Mr. Primakov won prize after prize in competitions around the world.
In 2007 he was named the Classical Recording Foundation’s “Young Artist of the Year.” Primakov’s 2009 recording of Chopin "Mazurkas" was named “Best of the Year” by National Public Radio and that same year he began recording the 27 Mozart piano concertos in Denmark. BBC Music Magazine (November, 2010) praised the first volume of this series: “The piano playing is of exceptional quality: refined, multi-coloured, elegant of phrase and immaculately balanced, both in itself and in relation to the effortlessly stylish orchestra. The rhythm is both shapely and dynamic, the articulation a model of subtlety. By almost every objective criterion, Vassily Primakov is a Mozartian to the manner born, fit to stand as a role model to a new generation.”
Joining Vassily Primakov for this dazzling concert are Zoya Shereshkova, cello & Natalia Lavrova, piano.
