e-Piano Junior Competition Kick-Off Event

Minnesota Public Radio and MacPhail Center for Music present
e-Piano Junior Competition Kick-Off Event

Thursday, June 19, 2008
6:00PM
Antonello Hall
MacPhail Center for Music
501 South 2nd Street
Minneapolis, MN 55401

This inaugural event, hosted by MPR's Melissa Ousley, will feature an engaging conversation with Alexander Braginsky, the President and Artistic Director of the Minnesota International Piano-e-Competition. In spirit of this year's e-Piano Junior Competition that is designed for young pianists ages 17 and under, the event will feature brilliant performances by thirteen-year-old Jeff Zhang of Minnesota and eleven-year-old Alice Burla of New York.

The Minnesota International Piano-e-Competition prides itself on innovative use of technology. During this inaugural event the audience will have an opportunity to see how the technology enables contestants from the most distant corners of the world to take part in the competition. As an example, a participant from the preliminary round will be presented in the form of video synchronized Disklavier playback on the stage of Antonello Hall. Additionally, Jeff Zhang and Alice Burla will perform live: Jeff will be physically in Minneapolis, but Alice will perform in New York City, with her playing transmitted in real time over the Internet to the Disklavier piano on stage.

The audience will have an opportunity to ask questions about the competition from the founders of the Minnesota International Piano-e-Competition Alexander Braginsky and Jeffrey Wirth.

Alexander Braginsky

Introduced to the piano by his concert pianist mother, Moscow-born Alexander Braginsky began studying the piano at the age of four. His first teacher, Alexander Goldenweiser, a classmate of Rachmaninov and Scriabin, introduced Braginsky to the 19th century Romantic tradition. Braginsky also studied with Theodore Gutman, another illustrious representative of the Golden Age of Russian piano schools. Offering his audiences a repertoire that extends from Baroque to avant-garde, Braginsky has performed more than 20 world premiers, most of which were commissioned and written for him. Braginsky has performed extensively in USSR, Israel, England, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Taiwan, People’s Republic of China, Spain, France and the United States. He also appeared on stage in collaboration with the variety of renowned artists including Yefim Bronfman and Oleg Kagan. Together with his wife, cellist Tanya Remenikova, the couple was the first artists-in-residence appointed by Churchill College, Cambridge, in 1981. A Professor on the faculty of the International Music Summer Course in Vienna, Austria, Braginsky has given numerous master classes around the world. He was awarded the Josef Dichler Gold Medal for outstanding achievement in 2003. Today, Braginsky teaches at the University of Minnesota School of Music and is the Artistic Director of the Musicians in Debut International (MIDI) as well as the Founding President and the Artistic Director of the Minnesota International Piano-e-Competition.

Jeff Zhang

Thirteen-year-old Jeff Zhang, born in St Louis Park, Minnesota, is currently an 8th grader at Wayzata Central Middle School.
Jeff started playing piano when he was 6 years old, and for the past 3 years he has been studying with Professor Alexander Braginsky. In the last two years Jeff has gathered an impressive array of contest wins, including Schubert Club, Thursday Musical, YPSCA and MTNA competitions.
In addition to his notable musical activities, Jeff has an impressive academic record: he has been a straight “A” students since kindergarten, and just in the past school year he was awarded Presidential Award for Academic Excellence and 2008 Midwest Academic Talent Search Award for his Academic Achievements.
When not doing his homework or practicing piano, Jeff enjoys playing online games and spending time with his friends.

Alice Burla

Canadian-born Ms. Alice Burla, 11, came to New York after winning 1st place in the National Final of the Canadian Music Competitions to study with legendary pianist and Professor Oxana Yablonskaya. Alice became one of the youngest students ever to be accepted to the Juilliard School Pre-College Division.
At her young age, Alice Burla already performed successfully in many major concert venues such as Carnegie Hall, Juilliard School, Steinway Hall, and Yamaha Artist Services to name a few. She has played solo concerts in Mexico, Japan, Germany and France. In France, at Ecole Normale de Musique, she had an honor to share a concert with the first prize winner of the 2005 Van Cliburn International Competition Alexander Kobrin.
Alice performed with multiple symphony and chamber orchestras such as Rockland Symphony, Hawthorne Symphony, Adelphi Chamber Orchestra, Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, New York Sinfonietta, and Chamber Orchestra Amadeus. In a recent performance of J. C. Bach’s Concerto in B-Flat Major, Alice played her own cadenzas.
Alice Burla was one of the featured young artists on From the Top, “Live from Carnegie Hall,” where she was selected among the nation’s top young musicians, and was broadcasted on PBS in May 2007.
In March of this year Alice was invited by Prof. Hiroko Nakamura to participate in the prestigious 13th Hamamatsu International Piano Academy in Japan. There she studied with world- renowned pianists, such as Hiroko Nakamura, Oxana Yablonskaya, Sequeira Costa, Piero Rattalino, and Sergei Babayan. The youngest participant ever, Alice Burla was chosen to be one of the finalists at the Academy Competition.
As result of her achievements, Alice Burla was profiled as a piano prodigy in The New York Times, Accent Magazine, The Journal News, Forward, Jewish Week, the Juilliard Journal, Westchester Parent, The Rivertowns Enterprise, New Russian Word, La Scene Musicale (France), El Norte (Mexico), Russian Express, and in New Canadian (Canada), Rhein Neckar-Zeitung (Germany), Chu-nichi Press and Shizuoka Press (Japan), as well as in TV and radio broadcasts such as WCBS 880 News, From the Top on PBS, WQXR, WB11 "News at Ten," Fox 5 News, Rockland County News and “Das Kulturmagazin aus der Metropolregion."

Melissa Ousley, host

Melissa Ousley is a senior producer at Classical Minnesota Public Radio and also hosts MPR’s popular Friday Favorites program, a show she brought to MPR from WCAL where she was a classical host for 15 years. She studied at the Manhattan School of Music as a teenager and earned a bachelor’s degree from Eastman. More: Minnesota Public Radio Website.