NEC Concert for Ukraine with Guest Artist, Pianist Sergei Babayan

J.S. Bach - M. Hess, “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”

Boris Lyatoshinsky, Prelude Op. 38, No. 3

Stanislav Khristenko 

Stanislav Khristenko's performances have captivated audiences on four continents since his first solo recital at the age of 11 at the Kharkiv Philharmonic Hall in Ukraine. A “poet of piano” (Le Soir, Belgium), Mr. Khristenko has been praised  for his emotional intensity, charismatic expression, “pallette of touches”,  “solid” and “precise” technique by The New York Times, The Washington Post and Miami Herald (USA); The Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine (UK) and El Pais (Spain).

As a concert pianist, Stanislav Khristenko received prizes at over 30 international piano competitions including Cleveland International Piano Competition, Maria Canals International Piano Competition and Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition. His recordings were released on Steinway&Sons, Naxos, Oehms, Toccata Classics and recording labels. Mr. Khristenko has appeared as a piano soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra, Phoenix, Puerto Rico and Richmond Symphonies, National Orchestra of Belgium, Bilbao, Madrid and Tenerife Symphony Orchestras, Liege Royal Philharmonic, and Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. His performance highlights include solo recitals at Carnegie Hall, Vienna Konzerthaus, Palais de Beaux-Arts in Brussels, as well as performances with orchestras in The Berlin Philharmonie, Seoul Arts Center, Moscow Conservatory Great Hall, and Hong Kong City Hall. Stanislav Khristenko is a Steinway Artist.

Born in Ukraine, Stanislav Khristenko studied with Vera Gornostaeva in the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and with Sergei Babayan in the Cleveland Institute of Music. He also studied orchestral conducting at the Warsaw Chopin University with Tomasz Bugaj. Mr. Khristenko is a co-founder of KharkivMusicFest as well as Music Director of Nova Sinfonietta Chamber Orchestra in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In 2020 he has founded Rethink Classical, digital initiative for classical music and arts as well as Rethink Piano Academy, mentoring initiative for young pianists.

Valentin Silvestrov: Five Waltzes and a Lullaby, Op. 74

Pavel Nercessian

“His performance brought a veritable roar of approval from the audience,” wrote the Irish Times, after Pavel Nersessian received the 1st Prize in the GPA Dublin International Piano Competition in 1991. Being one of the most remarkable pianists of his generation in Russia, he is known for his ability to play equally convincingly in the whole palette of the piano repertoire. He won prizes in the Beethoven Competition in Vienna in 1985, the Paloma O’Shea Competition in Santander, and the Tokyo Competition.

Nersessian was a pupil of the famous Central Music School of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire, where his teacher was Yu. Levin. Later he was a student of the Conservatoire under Prof. S. Dorensky. Upon graduating from the Conservatoire in 1987 with maximum marks he was invited to join the faculty.

Pavel Nersessian has been touring Russia and surrounding states from the age of eight, and has given performances in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Cannes, Leipzig, Vienna, Budapest, Madrid, Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, Dublin, Muenchen, Caracas, Rio de Janeiro, Belgrade, Cairo, Kiev, and many other cities.

Mr. Nersessian, by special invitation from the Kirov and the Perm Ballet, performed solo part in Balanchine’s Ballet Imperial based on the music of Tchaikovsky’s 2nd Piano Concerto with performances in the Kirov, Bolshoi, Chatelet and Covent Garden. He also played a solo part in J. Robbins’ ballet “The concert, or The Perils of Everybody” on the music of F. Chopin.

He is known for his collaboration with chamber music groups and other musicians, such as Borodin and Glinka Quartets, National Symphony Orchestra in Russia, Thomas Sanderling, Tugan Sokhiev, Eri Klas, Saulius Sondeckis, Alexander Lazarev, Ken-David Mazur, Pavel Kogan, Alexandre Chernushenko, Mikhail Agrest, Pascal Moragues, Julius Milkis, Evgeny Petrov, Abel Perreira, Benjamin Schmid, Stepan Yakovich, Ani Kavafian, Andrei Gridchuk, Alena Baeva, Philippe Cassard, Yana Ivanilova, Nina Kogan, Mikhail Bereznitsky and many others. He has recorded numerous disks with the compositions of Chopin, Schumann, Schubert, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Shostakovich, and he has given masterclasses in the USA, Russia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Korea, Brazil, and Japan.

Pavel Nersessian has been working as an assistant in a class of a famous professor S. Dorensky since 1987. Many famous students graduated from this studio during these years: N. Lugansky, V. Rudenko, D. Matsuev, O. Kern, A. Shtarkman, P. Kolesnikov, G. Tchaidze, A. Dossin, F. Kopachevsky, T. Tessman and many others.

Andrius Žlabys, Movement for String Quartet and Piano, 2016

Andrius Žlabys

Grammy-nominated pianist Andrius Žlabys has received international acclaim for his appearances with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including The New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Rotterdam Symphony, and Philharmonic Orchestra of Buenos Aires. He is a featured soloist in "Between two Waves" by Victor Kissine for piano and string orchestra released on ECM in 2013 in collaboration with Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica. In 2012, Andrius Žlabys made his concerto debut at the Salzburg Festival performing Mozart’s Concerto K.467 with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra conducted by Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla.

Andrius Žlabys—born in Lithuania and trained at the Curtis Institute of Music—was 18 years old when the Chicago Tribune wrote: “Pianist-composer Andrius Žlabys is one of the most gifted young keyboard artists to emerge in years.” Žlabys was also heralded by The New York Sun in a review titled “A Shining Hope of Pianists” after his recital at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Žlabys’s artistry has received many other accolades from the press for his performances of “easy virtuosity” (The Strad), “generous and all encompassing“ sound (The Philadelphia Inquirer),“spell-binding interpretation” (The Plain Dealer) and his “wealth of musical perception” (The Greenville News). This international acclaim has followed his uniquely honest approach to music, as described by The Philadelphia Inquirer: “The beloved C-major chord... rippled off Žlabys' hands with such open-hearted rightness that you couldn't escape the notion that the pianist was acting as Bach's ventriloquist...”

Mr. Žlabys’s concerts have included appearances on many of the world’s leading stages, such as Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, Phillips Collection, Teatro Colón, Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein and Suntory Hall. He has also appeared at numerous festivals both in the U.S. and abroad, including the Menuhin, Salzburg, Lockenhaus and Caramoor music festivals, and made his Carnegie Hall debut at the Isaac Stern Auditorium with the New York Youth Symphony conducted by Misha Santora in 2001 in a performance of Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto. He was also invited the following season as soloist with Kremerata Baltica to perform Benjamin Britten’s Young Apollo at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall.

Andrius Žlabys has enjoyed collaborations with several esteemed musicians, including violist Yuri Bashmet, violinist Hilary Hahn, and an enduring collaboration with violinist Gidon Kremer with whom Zlabys has toured extensively in Europe, Japan, South America, and the U.S. 

In 2003, Žlabys received a Grammy nomination for his recording of Enescu’s Piano Quintet with Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica. A multifaceted musician of wide-ranging repertoire, Andrius Žlabys holds a special reverence for J. S. Bach, while remaining a strong advocate for the contemporary stage with numerous works commissioned by and written for him. He was a winner of 2000 Astral Artists National auditions.

Andrius Žlabys began piano studies at the age of six in his native Lithuania with Laima Jakniuniene at the Ciurlionis Art School,  and continued his studies in the U.S. with Victoria Mushkatkol (Interlochen Arts Academy), Seymour Lipkin (Curtis Institute of Music), Sergei Babayan (Cleveland Institute of Music), and Claude Frank (Yale School of Music).

Johannes Brahms, Piano Quintet Op. 34

I. Allegro non troppo
II. Andante, un poco adagio
III. Scherzo: Allegro
IV. Finale: Poco sostenuto. Allegro non troppo
 

Sergei Babayan

The meditative focus and rare stillness of Armenian-American pianist Sergei Babayan’s keyboard artistry prompted the Hamburger Abendblatt to liken him to “one of those Japanese calligraphers who contemplate the white page before them in silence until, at the exact right moment, their brush makes its instinctive, perfect sweep across the paper”. Babayan himself has observed that making music should be open to surprises and spontaneous insights, allowing unexpected emotions to emerge and subtle shadings to evolve naturally. 

Sergei Babayan has collaborated with such conductors as Sir Antonio Pappano, David Robertson, Neeme Järvi, Yuri Temirkanov, Thomas Dausgaard, Tugan Sokhiev, and Dima Slobodeniouk. Over the years, Babayan has performed with Valery Gergiev numerous times to great critical acclaim, including appearances at the International Festival "Stars of the White Nights", the Moscow Easter Festival, the Barbican Centre with Maestro Gergiev conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, in St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Théâtre des Champs-Elyseés in Paris, at the Salzburg Festival, and at the Rotterdam Philharmonic-Gergiev Festival, where Babayan was artist-in-residence.

In recent seasons, Mr. Babayan’s schedule included concert performances with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Mariinsky Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, and the Verbier Festival Orchestra, among others. Sergei Babayan regularly performs at many of the world’s most prestigious venues, including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Vienna Konzerthaus and Munich Prinzregententheater, the Maison de la Radio in Paris, at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie and Frankfurt Alte Oper, and the Zurich Tonhalle. He will also return to major festivals including La Roque d’Anthéron, Piano aux Jacobins in Toulouse, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, and Verbier Festival. At Konzerthaus Dortmund, Sergei Babayan was a Curating Artist during the 2019/20 season. Mr. Babayan performs with the world's foremost orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille, Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

Sergei Babayan is a Deutsche Grammophon exclusive artist; his latest release 'Rachmaninoff' (DG 2020) was hailed by the international press as a groundbreaking recording and received numerous awards including BBC Recording of the Month and CHOC Classica ('This musical journey, born out of a limitless imagination and thought in minute detail, is one big masterpiece.') His previous DG release of his own transcriptions for two pianos of works by Sergei Prokofiev, with Martha Argerich as his partner (‘Prokofiev for Two’; DG 2018), was praised by reviewers as ‘the CD one has waited for’ (Le Devoir), an ‘electrifying duo that leaves the listener in consternation’ (Pianiste). Mr. Babayan's performances have been broadcast by Radio France, BBC-TV and BBC Radio 3, NHK Satellite Television and Medici TV.

Born in Armenia into a musical family, Babayan began his studies there with Georgy Saradjev and continued at the Moscow Conservatory with Mikhail Pletnev, Vera Gornostayeva and Lev Naumov. Following his first trip outside of the USSR in 1989, he won consecutive first prizes in several major international competitions including the Cleveland International Piano Competition, the Hamamatsu Piano Competition, and the Scottish International Piano Competition. An American citizen, he lives in New York City.