Tenth Boston International Piano Competition
Edward M. Pickman Concert Hall
Longy School of Music ~ Cambridge, Massachusetts
June 5 - 8, 2019
Schedule
June 5 9:00 A.M. - 12:00 P.M.
Roberto Poli
9:00 - Yiran Wang
9:45 - Anqi Wang
10:30 - George Foukal
11:15 - Sho Yamasuki
June 6 9:00 A.M. - 12:00 P.M.
Hugh Hinton
9:00 - John Vineyard
9:45 - Marco di Marzio
10:30 - Ian Roy
11:15 - Judith Knott
June 7 9:45 A.M. - 12:00 P.M.
Sergey Schepkin
9:45 - Sibylle Barrasso
10:30 - Pavel Chistyakov
11:15 - Carl di Casoli
Our Faculty
Roberto Poli, a native of Venice, Italy, has appeared as a soloist, harpsichordist, chamber musician and conductor around the world in cities such as Boston, Brussels, Calgary, Dublin, New York, Rome and Seoul. He has studied with Giorgio Vianello, Phillipe Cassard and Boris Petrushansky. After moving to the United States in 1998, he received a Master’s Degree and the prestigious Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory of Music under the guidance of Russell Sherman.
The music of Chopin, which Mr. Poli has studied through manuscripts and original editions, is the current center of a project including the recording on video of the composer’s complete works; the organization of the Chopin Symposia, featuring illustrious performers, pedagogues and lecturers; and the publication of his first book, The Secret Life of Musical Notation: defying interpretive traditions (Amadeus Press, 2009) - a volume on pianistic interpretation which provides a new vision of Chopin's works that is both scholarly and practical. His debut CD, "Shall We Dance...", was released on Americus Records in 2002. An all-Liszt album was recently presented by Onclassical, a European label which will also release his recording of the complete works of Chopin.
After Mr. Poli’s American debut was saluted by the press as “pure magic”, similar assessments have been expressed around the world in cities such as Boston, Brussels, Calgary, Dublin, New York, Paris, Rome, Seoul, Tokyo, Vilnius, Zurich and wherever he travels. Acclaimed as a soloist on both piano and harpsichord, and as a chamber musician and conductor, Roberto Poli has appeared with the Monet Ensemble, the Trio di Venezia, the Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston, soprano Elizabeth Keusch, clarinetist Jonathan Cohler, violinist Markus Placci, and cellists Sarah Carter and Ronald Lowry. In recent years, he has appeared in extensive and critically acclaimed tours of South Korea and the United States with cellist Daniel Lee. In April of 2014, he appeared as a conductor and soloist with the Chamber Orchestra of El Salvador in a program devoted to Mozart and Chopin
Roberto Poli is an enthusiastic sought-after teacher and lecturer. He holds positions at the Rivers School Conservatory in Weston, Massachusetts, where he is the Artist-in-Residence and Co-chair of the Piano Department; and at the New England Conservatory’s Preparatory School. He also enjoys a busy schedule of master classes, and has been a guest lecturer and keynote speaker at institutions such as Cornell University, Dartmouth College, New England Conservatory of Music, University of Pennsylvania and the University of Virginia.
Hugh Hinton has performed widely as a concerto soloist, in recitals, and as a chamber musician, with a special interest in modern and contemporary music. He performed the world premiere of Chinary Ung’s Triple Concerto with the Phoenix, New Hampshire, and Honolulu Symphonies. He also performed the premiere of Bernard Rands’s Triple Concerto with the Florida Philharmonic, and performed and recorded the work with the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, released on Albany Records.
Hinton has been a member of the contemporary music group Core Ensemble since its founding in 1993. Core Ensemble has performed at universities nationwide and in Russia, Ukraine, and Australia. Hinton was a winner of the United States Information Agency Artistic Ambassador competition, resulting in concerts and residencies throughout the Middle East. Hinton has appeared at many summer music festivals, including performances at Tanglewood’s Seiji Ozawa Hall, and at the Monadnock Festival in New Hampshire, where he performed Elliott Carter’s Piano Quintet. He has performed widely in Boston and New England, including performances at NEC’s Jordan Hall, Longy’s Pickman Hall, and at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. He has been heard on WGBH radio in Boston, and his performances have been broadcast internationally on “Art of the States.” His many recordings of contemporary and chamber music can be found on the Naxos, Etcetera, CRI, Newport Classics, and MMC labels.
Hinton earned his Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and Master’s and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from New England Conservatory, where his piano teachers included Russell Sherman, Wha-Kyung Byun, Lev Vlassenko, and Mykola Suk. A committed teacher, he currently serves as director of campus music activities at Merrimack College and instructor of piano at the Longy School of Music of Bard College.
Steinway Artist Sergey Schepkin has performed worldwide, from the United States to Europe to Russia to Japan to New Zealand. He made his Carnegie Hall recital début in 1993 (at Weill Hall) to critical acclaim. The many venues and series where he has performed include Lincoln Center’s Great Performers Series, the Celebrity Series of Boston, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Pittsburgh’s Heinz Hall, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC, the National Concert Hall in Dublin, the Philharmonic Halls in St. Petersburg, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and the Sumida Triphony Hall in Tokyo. His repertoire includes solo, concerto, and chamber works from the late Renaissance to our day. He is a renowned interpreter of keyboard works by J.S. Bach, and was hailed by The New York Times as “a formidable Bach pianist.” Among his more recent recordings, the Steinway & Sons releases of Bach’s six French Suites and six Partitas were featured as CDs of the Week on WGBH/WCRB (Boston Public Radio) and acclaimed by Gramophone, Fanfare, and Classics Today. Mr. Schepkin can be heard on Arabesque, Bridge, Centaur, King International, Ongaku, and Simax Classics labels, and his recordings are broadcast nationwide and internationally.
A naturalized American, Mr. Schepkin was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and studied with Alexandra Zhukovsky, Grigory Sokolov, and Alexander Ikharev at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. After his move to the United States in 1990, he studied with Russell Sherman at New England Conservatory, where he earned an Artist Diploma in 1992 and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 1999. In 1994–98, he also studied with Paul Doguereau. He is a recipient of many grants and awards and a prizewinner of numerous national and international competitions.
A prominent educator, Mr. Schepkin has presented master classes and lecture-recitals throughout the USA and abroad. He is Professor of Piano and piano division chair at Carnegie Mellon University, where he has taught since 2003. He also teaches at the New England Conservatory School of Preparatory and Continuing Education in Boston.
In September 2018, Mr. Schepkin launched his own concert series, Glissando, to enthusiastic reviews. Glissando’s first season, consisting of seven concerts, celebrated Bach’s 333rd birthday. The series takes place at the historic First Church in Boston, and features well-known works and rarely performed masterpieces by composers from many different eras. Its 2019–20 season will be centered around Beethoven.