Celebrity Series of Boston
Gary Dunning, President and Executive Director
Presents
Evgeny Kissin, piano
Sunday, March 16, 2014 5pm — Symphony Hall
(Boston) Celebrity Series of Boston will present pianist Evgeny Kissin on Sunday, March 16, 2014, at 5:00pm at Symphony Hall, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, MA.
Tickets for Evgeny Kissin start at $30, and are available online at www.celebrityseries.org, by calling CelebrityCharge at (617) 482-6661 Monday-Friday 10:00 a.m.- 4:00 p.m., or at the Symphony Hall box office, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston.
This performance marks Evgeny Kissin’s eighth performance with the Celebrity Series of Boston; his debut was in 1991 and most recent in 2013.
Evgeny Kissin’s musicality, the depth and poetic quality of his interpretations, and his extraordinary virtuosity have earned him admiration deserved by one of the most gifted classical pianists of his generation. He is in demand the world over, and has appeared with many of the world’s great conductors, including Abbado, Ashkenazy, Barenboim, Dohnányi, Giulini, Maazel, and Muti, as well as all the great orchestras of the world.
Mr. Kissin was born in Moscow in October 1971 and began to play by ear and improvise on the piano at the age of two. At six years old, he entered a special school for gifted children, the Moscow Gnessin School of Music, where he was a student of Anna Pavlovna Kantor, who has been his only teacher. At the age of ten, he made his concerto debut playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto K. 466 and gave his first solo recital in Moscow one year later. He came to international attention in March 1984 when, at the age of twelve, he performed Chopin’s Piano Concertos 1 and 2 in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory with the Moscow State Philharmonic under Dmitri Kitaenko. This concert was recorded live by Melodia, and a two-LP album was released the following year. Given the astounding success of this recording, Melodia proceeded to release five more LPs of live performances in Moscow over the following two years.
Mr. Kissin’s first appearances outside Russia were in 1985 in Eastern Europe, 1986 in Japan, and in December 1988 when he performed with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic in a New Year’s concert broadcast internationally. In 1990 Mr. Kissin made his first appearance at the BBC Promenade Concerts in London and, in the same year, made his North American debut, performing both Chopin piano concertos with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Zubin Mehta. The following week he opened Carnegie Hall’s Centennial season with a spectacular debut recital, recorded live by BMG Classics.
Musical awards and tributes from around the world have been showered upon Evgeny Kissin. He received the Crystal Prize of the Osaka Symphony Hall for the Best Performance of the Year in 1986 (his first performance in Japan). In 1991 he received the Musician of the Year Prize from the Chigiana Academy of Music in Siena, Italy. He was special guest at the 1992 Grammy Awards Ceremony, broadcast live to an audience estimated at over one billion, and three years later became Musical America’s youngest Instrumentalist of the Year. In 1997 he became the youngest ever to receive the prestigious Triumph Award for his outstanding contribution to Russia’s culture, one of the highest cultural honors to be awarded in the Russian Republic. Mr. Kissin has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music by the Manhattan School of Music; the Shostakovich Award, one of Russia’s highest musical honors; an Honorary Membership of the Royal Academy of Music in London; and most recently an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the Hong Kong University.
Mr. Kissin’s recordings have also received numerous awards, having contributed significantly to the library of masterpieces recorded by the world’s greatest performers. Awards have included the Edison Klassiek in The Netherlands, and the Diapason d’Or and the Grand Prix of La Nouvelle Academie du Disque in France. His recording of works by Scriabin, Medtner and Stravinsky (RCA Red Seal) won him a Grammy in 2006 for Best Instrumental Soloist, and in 2002 he was named Echo Klassik Soloist of the Year. His most recent Grammy for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance was awarded in 2010 for his recording of Prokofiev’s Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 3 with the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy (EMI Classics).
Program:
Franz Schubert
Sonata No. 17 in D Major, Opus 53, D. 850
Alexander Scriabin
Sonata No. 2 in G-sharp minor, Opus 19
Alexander Scriabin
from Twelve Etudes, Opus 8
No. 2 in F-sharp minor
No. 4 in B Major
No. 5 in E Major
No. 8 in A-flat Major
No. 9 in G-sharp minor
No. 11 in B-flat minor
No. 12 in D-sharp minor
About Celebrity Series of Boston
Celebrity Series of Boston was founded in 1938 by pianist and impresario Aaron Richmond. Over the course of its 75-year history, Celebrity Series has presented an array of the world’s greatest performing artists, including Sergei Rachmaninoff, Arturo Toscanini, Ignace Paderewski, Artur Rubenstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Glenn Gould, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Isaac Stern, Andrés Segovia, Kirsten Flagstad, Marian Anderson, Luciano Pavarotti, Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, Martha Graham, Ballet Russe De Monte Carlo, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Mstislav Rostropovich, and the New York City Opera Company.
The Celebrity Series has been bringing the very best performers–from orchestras and chamber ensembles, vocal and piano music, to dance companies, jazz, and more–to Boston’s major concert halls for 75 years. The Celebrity Series of Boston believes in the power of excellence and innovation in the performing arts to enrich life experiences, transform lives and build better communities. Through its education initiatives, the Celebrity Series seeks to build a community of Greater Boston where the performing arts are a valued, lifelong, shared experience–on stages, in schools, at home– everywhere. For more information on Celebrity Series of Boston, call (617) 482-2595 or visit us online at www.celebrityseries.org.
The Celebrity Series of Boston, Inc. receives generous support from Amy and Joshua Boger; Eleanor and Frank Pao; Donna and Mike Egan; Susanne Marcus Collins Foundation; The Little Family Foundation; Tufts Health Plan; Foley & Lardner LLP; The John S. and Cynthia Reed Foundation; First Republic Bank; The Peabody Foundation; Charlesbank Capital Partners; PTC; Vertex Pharmaceuticals; The D.L. Saunders Real Estate Corp; Massachusetts Cultural Council; New England Foundation for the Arts.
###
