Evelyne Brancart was born in Belgium where she studied 10 years with the great Spanish master Eduardo del Pueyo and later with Maria Curcio, Leon Fleisher and Menahem Pressler. She was a prizewinner in many international competitions including: Queen Elisabeth-Belgium, (where she returned as a judge in 1999) Montreal, Viotti-Italy, Munich (with her duo partner cellist Anthony Ross) and Gina Bacchauer-Salt Lake City. She played many recitals all over Europe (Wigmore, Queen Elisabeth…) and made several recordings with BBC orchestras before moving to the States in 1980. She made her debut in Alice Tully Hall in 1982. Evelyne Brancart is very involved in Chamber Music. Between 1986 and 1990 she was a member of the Seraphim Trio with whom she performed all Beethoven Piano Trios. More recently she performed all violin and cello Beethoven sonatas. She has appeared with artists like Tony Ross, Gary Hoffman, Miriam Fried, Frederico Agostini, Arnold Steinhardt, Atar Arad and with the Cleveland, Vermeer and Orion Quartets at the Ravinia Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Da Camera (Houston), Leicester Music Festival in England, Mozart Festival in Lille France, Music at the Red Sea in Israel, Perry Sound and Sainte-Petronille in Canada, Bay Chamber in Maine, Close Encounters with Music in Florida and the Festival D'Horrues in Belgium.
During the 2005 2006 season, Evelyne Brancart gave numerous recitals and master classes through Europe, Asia and South America.
Evelyne Brancart is currently Professor of Music (Piano) at Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington and Chair of the Piano Department since August 2001. Previous teaching positions include The University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, Rice University in Houston, San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Aspen Summer Music School, where she innovated a seminar devoted to Chopin and Liszt Etudes. Her conference on the Chopin Etudes: "The Hand as a Source of Inspiration" and her seminar: "The Art of Playing the Piano" as well as "Deconstruction for Reconstruction" (Reflections on J.S.Bach) have had tremendous success amongst pianists, piano teachers, amateurs and musicians.
Wojciech Kocyan has been praised for his “incisive temperament, impeccable technique, sumptuous tone and consummate artistry” (Le Monde de la Musique) and described as a “pianist who’s got it all: a complete technique, beautiful sound, wonderful musicianship and real individuality” (Classics Today.com).
He was born in Poland and studied with two of the world’s most esteemed piano pedagogues: Andrzej Jasiński in Poland, where he received his Masters Degree and with John Perry at the University of Southern California, where he received a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree.
He is a laureate of several international piano competitions, including F. Busoni and Viotti, as well as a special prizes winner of the XI International Chopin Competition and a First Prize winner of the Paderewski Piano Competition. He performed on all continents. He has recorded for Polish Television, Radio and Film and his performances were broadcast in Europe, United States and Australia. His solo and chamber music recordings can also be found on DUX label.
He was a subject of press articles in Poland, France, Italy, Germany, United States and Japan.
Mr. Kocyan participated in two documentary films and several stage programs, including portraying Chopin in Barbara Wachowicz’s theatre play and most recently playing the part of Paderewski in a play staged in Los Angeles, California.
In September 2007 the Gramophone magazine, published in London and considered world’s most prestigious classical music journal, chose Mr. Kocyan’s recording of Prokofiev, Scriabin and Rachmaninoff as one of 50 best classical recordings ever made alongside recordings by such luminaries as Leonard Bernstein, Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau, Nicolaus Harnoncourt and Arthur Rubinstein. It also featured a cover headline “The genius of Wojciech Kocyan”.
Dr. Kocyan is a Clinical Professor of Piano at Loyola-Marymount University in Los Angeles.
Internationally acclaimed pianist Jon Kimura Parker was born, raised and educated in Vancouver. Jon Kimura Parker has performed as guest artist with the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and with the major orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and throughout Canada. He has given recitals in London, New York, Chicago, Munich, Budapest, Sydney, Hong Kong, and Tokyo and has performed with the Tokyo Quartet and Joshua Bell. In the spring of 2007 he performed and spoke alongside humanitarians Elie Wiesel and Paul Rusesabagina at the 50th Anniversary of AmeriCares, under whose auspices he performed in war-torn Sarajevo in 1995.
In the summer of 2007 he gave the world premiere of Peter Schickele’s Music for Orcas Island, and in 2009 he joined Cho-Liang Lin in the world premiere of a new violin sonata by Paul Schoenfield. A versatile performer, he has jammed with Doc Severinsen and Bobby McFerrin, and collaborated with Audra McDonald and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Mr. Parker was awarded his country’s highest honor, the Order of Canada, in 1999. He has had a long-standing relationship with the Warsaw Philharmonic, including a Carnegie Hall appearance with Kazimierz Kord, and several engagements in Warsaw with Jerzy Semkow.
Jon Kimura Parker is Professor of Piano at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. A committed educator, he has given master classes at the Steans Institute, the Banff Centre, the Brevard Festival, Caramoor’s Rising Stars, and The Juilliard School. He has hosted the television series “WholeNotes” about classical music, and gives recitals and lectures in remote regions of Canada as a founding member of “Piano Plus.” Mr. Parker was also seen performing on CNN and has been documented frequently on CBC, as well as on PBS’s “The Visionaries.” Mr. Parker has recorded for Telarc with André Previn, Yoel Levi, and Peter Schickele.
Last season Mr. Parker appeared as concerto soloist with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and the NHK Orchestra in Tokyo, and he toured Canada with Pinchas Zukerman and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. This season Mr. Parker performs at the Beijing Music Festival, with the Atlanta Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Oregon Symphony and Seattle Symphony, in recitals with James Ehnes, Cho-Liang Lin and Lynn Harrell and in festivals across the country, including the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, where he serves as Artistic Advisor. He returns to Los Angeles to perform Beethoven’s “Emperor” Piano Concerto in April 2011 with Jeffrey Kahane and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
“Jackie” Parker studied with Edward Parker, Keiko Parker, Robin Wood, Marek Jablonski, and Lee Kum-Sing, as well as Adele Marcus, under whom he received his doctorate at The Juilliard School in 1988. J
Pianist Margarita Shevchenko, a musician of "uncommon sensitivity and refinement," is one of the leading young pianists on the international concert platform today. She has been the recipient of the "Special Chopin Prize" at five competitions in addition to seven top prizes she has won at major international piano competitions in Europe, Japan and the United States. The New York Times noted “...the delicacy of her scurrying pianissimo passage work was exemplary...” and Cleveland's music critic Donald Rosenberg called her "a musician to cherish" who has won the hearts of audiences, critics and competition judges around the world.
Ms. Shevchenko has toured throughout the world, giving recital and concerto performances in the United States, Canada, throughout Europe, Brazil, Japan, Russia, Israel and South Africa. Highlights of her many orchestral appearances include performances with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Mendi Rodan and Cape Town Symphony under JoAnn Faletta, as well as the Polish National Philharmonic, Polish Radio Television Orchestra, the Ohio Chamber Orchestra, New Arts Symphony Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, and the Hamamatsu Symphony Orchestra, among others.
Most recently (June 2005), Margarita Shevchenko debuted before an enthusiastic audience with the renowned Wuerttemberg Chamber Orchestra performing Edward Grieg’s Piano Concerto in a-minor under Ruben Gazarian at the Weilburg Schlosskonzerte in Germany. She has been invited to return as the featured soloist in the next season. The leading newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung noted “Pianist Margarita Shevchenko, who on short notice filled in for Tzimon Barto, proved to be sensational...” and “...it was as if one would hear the concerto for the first time...” Earlier, Ms. Shevchenko was the featured artist at Cleveland’s Severence Hall, and appeared with the Reno Chamber Orchestra and the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra in addition to numerous recitals across the United States.
Ms. Shevchenko has given solo recitals to critical acclaim at New York's Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, and other major halls including Gasteig Performance Center, Munich; Old Opera House, Frankfurt; Salle Cortot, and Chatelet Theater, Paris; Leeds City Hall, U.K, Tchaikovsky Hall, Moscow; Big Hall of Moscow Conservatory; Yamaha Hall, Tokyo, Japan; Minsk Philharmony; Jack Singer Concert Hall, Calgary; National Philharmony, Warsaw; Philharmony Brazilia; Cape Town Philharmony; South Africa, and Mann Auditorium, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Ms. Shevchenko has participated in such festivals as the Miami Festival, Strasbourg Festival, France; Chopin & George Sand Festival, La Chartre, France; Weilburger Schlosskonzerte, Palermo Festival, Sicily; Rocca Malatestiana Festival, Italy; Marienbad Chopin Festival, Czechoslovakia and the Yokohama Festival, Japan. Ms. Shevchenko has performed for concert series in Atlanta, Minnesota, Sanibel, Florida and San Juan, Puerto Rico. She has performed at the Cleveland Museum of Art, The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, and for the Chopin Society in Hannover, Germany.
Ms. Shevchenko serves on faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
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Adam Wibrowski
Studies: in Poland, at Cracow Superior Academy of Music. Masters degree in piano performance. Professors: Halina Czerny-Stefanska and her husband Ludwik Stefanski. Studies at Doctorate 3 Cycle at Sorbonne, Paris.
Piano Awards: Poland (1st Prize at National Chopin Competition), Spain (Diploma de Honor at Maria Canals Int. Piano Competition in Barcelona), and France (1st Prize at the Union Française des Artistes Musiciens). Also the Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music and Music Studies by MTNA, USA.
Piano Teaching: successively at Grenoble Conservatory, France, University of Southern California, USA, European Virtuosity Class, Netherlands, Katowice Superior Academy of Music, Poland, and Paris Conservatory, France (since 2000). Master classes at major Universities and Conservatories in the USA (UCLA, Yale, Rice), Canada (McGill, U.B.C., Concordia), Australia, Japan, Vietnam, Italy.
Founder and Artistic Director: Chopin Festival at Nohant, France; European Music Sessions, Netherlands; Liszt Piano Festival, Hungary; Austria Piano Summer, Vienna-Ebenfurth.
Jury Member: Chopin European Piano Competition, Artur Rubinstein in Memoriam, Epinal France, Szymanowski Poland, Gina Bachauer USA
President of Chopin Association in Nohant, France Member of Paderewski Association, Switzerland Member of Paderewski Music Society in Los Angeles, Director Director of the Program of the European Union Culture Commission: "Piano - European Cultures"
Adam Wibrowski
