Vladimir Feltsman
Pianist, conductor and educator Vladimir Feltsman was born in Russia and received his training at Moscow Conservatory under the guidance of Jacob Flier. After he moved to the United States in 1987, Feltsman established himself as a major artist on the international concert scene, and a sought-after teacher. He has performed with major American and European orchestras and appeared at most prestigious concert venues and music festivals worldwide. His still-growing discography includes more than 60 CDs. He is a distinguished professor of piano at the State University of New York at New Paltz and teaches on the faculty of Mannes School of Music in Manhattan. Deeply concerned with the state of musical education in the United States, Feltsman and his wife Haewon established Feltsman Piano Foundation to help young pianists realize their full potential. He is the founder and artistic director of the international festival-institute PianoSummer at New Paltz, which brings together the most talented young musicians from all over the world. His book “Piano Lessons” was released in 2019.
Robert Hamilton
Robert Hamilton has made countless concert tours of four continents, appearing in the major halls of most music capitals. His orchestral engagements have included the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.; St. Louis Symphony Orchestra; Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra; Phoenix Symphony; Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra; Grant Park Symphony Orchestra in Chicago; Chautauqua Symphony in New York; and S.O.D.R.E.
Hamilton studied at Indiana University with the first winner of the coveted Levintritt Award, Sidney Foster, and graduated summa cum laude. A move to New York City brought studies with Dora Zaslavsky of the Manhattan School of Music, additional coaching from legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz, and a host of monetary awards from the Rockefeller Fund and U.S. State Department, launching a strong career here and abroad. Five prizes in major international competitions added more concerts and opportunities.
Paul Ostrovsky
He has appeared on the world’s most prestigious concert stages, including Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, La Scala in Milan, Bunka Kaikan and Santori Hall in Tokyo, and the Sydney Opera House in Australia. He has also performed at many great international festivals, including Mostly Mozart in New York City; Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts; Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Illinois; Schleswig-Holstein in Hamburg, Germany; Salzburg Festival in Austria; Louvre Festival in Paris; and St. Moritz Festival in Switzerland, to name a few.
Ostrovsky has collaborated with several famous artists, namely Isaac Stern, Shlomo Mintz, James Galway, and Vladimir Feltsman. In chamber music, he has performed with members of the Tokyo String Quartet, Shanghai String Quartet, Australian Quartet, and St. Petersburg Quartet.
Ostrovsky has a long and distinguished teaching career. In addition to his present position at the State University of New York at Purchase, he has been teaching at Piano Summer at New Paltz for many years and gives master classes throughout the world. Some of the institutions he has taught at are Moscow Conservatory (pre-college division); Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.; and Aspen Music Festival in Colorado.
His recording for Deutsche Grammophon of the Mendelssohn sonatas for violin and piano with Shlomo Mintz won the Grammophon award for chamber music in 1988. His Moscow Conservatory Trio recordings for CMH Records were highly acclaimed, as well.
HaeSun Paik
Pianist HaeSun Paik has been hailed as a “sensitive and thinking musician with stunning virtuosity” by the Los Angeles Times, and a “big and individual personality” by the New York Times, whose performances are “a rare example of technique actually serving both idea and feeling, head and heart,” according to Musical America. Having won top prizes at international piano competitions including the Queen Elisabeth Competition, Leeds International Piano Competition, the William Kapell Competition, and the International Tchaikovsky Competition, Paik has performed around the world in solo recitals, in concerti with orchestras, and as a chamber musician.Paik has appeared as a soloist under the baton of such conductors as Mikhail Pletnev, Sir Simon Rattle, Vassily Sinaisky, Dmitri Kitaenko, Stanislav Skrovaczewski, and Myung Whun Chung. She has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra; National Symphony Orchestra in Washington. D.C.; London Symphony Orchestra; KBS Symphony Orchestra of South Korea; NHK Symphony Orchestra of Japan; City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; Munich Philharmonic; Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra; Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra; Warsaw Philharmonic; Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra; and Russian National Orchestra, among others.
Paik has frequently performed in recital venues throughout the United States including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York City; the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; and Jordan Hall in Boston, as well as in major concert halls around the globe. She recorded the complete works by Beethoven for cello and piano with Laurence Lesser, which has been released by Bridge Records. Her debut and subsequent solo recordings can be heard on the EMI label.
One of the most sought after pedagogical influences in Korea, Paik was the youngest pianist of her generation to be appointed as a music professor at Seoul National University, where she taught for 10 years. Recently, she joined the piano faculty at New England Conservatory after teaching at Cleveland Institute of Music for several years. She is also an artist-in–residence at Daegu Catholic University and serves as the artistic director of the Busan Music Festival in Korea. She gives master classes at institutions and festivals worldwide and has served as a juror at the Cleveland, Honens, Gina Bachauer, Hilton Head, Bösendorfer and Yamaha USASU, and Seoul international piano competitions.
Paik graduated from the New England Conservatory under the tutelage of Russell Sherman and Wha Kyung Byun. Her artistic development was further influenced by her studies with Alicia de Larrocha, Karl Urlich Schnabel, and Alexis Weissenberg at the International Piano Foundation in Lake Como, Italy.
