International Jury

Alexander Braginsky (Nonvoting Chair) / United States

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 International Piano-e-Competition.

Akiko Ebi / Japan

A prolific recording artist and international performer, Akiko Ebi’s career was launched with she won the 1975 Grand Prix of the International Marguerite Long Competition in Paris. In 1980 she was a laureate of the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw. Ms. Ebi has performed around the world, and tours annually in her native Japan. Most recently she performed with L’Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, L’Orchestra Philharmonique de Radio France, the NHK Symphony and the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra. Ms. Ebi has recorded Chopin’s complete Etudes, Preludes, Nocturnes and Impromptus, as well as the works of Brahms, Liszt, Franck, Webern and Pierne. She was awarded the French Grand Prix d’Or of her recording of the works of Dynam-Victor Fumet, and her second Grand Prix d’Or Japonais for her disk of the compositions of Hikari Oe. Regarded as one of the most important interpreters of French music among all Japanese pianists, Ms. Ebi was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government in 1993, and in 2002 received Japan’s prestigious Exxon-Mobile Music Prize.

Stanislav Pochekin / Russia

Stanislav Pochekin was born in Russia and received his music education at the Gnesin Institute in Moscow under the tutelage of the illustrious Edouard Mirzoian and Theodore Gutman. Upon the completion of his studies he served as a professor at the Conservatoire in Sverdlovsk (Russia). In 1989 he was invited to Cuba where he became a professor at the “Instituto Superior del Arte” in Havana.
Mr. Pochekin’s repertoire ranges from Baroque to the Contemporary. He performed with many major orchestras and worked with distinguished conductors such as M. Paverman, F. Glushenko, I. Lapinsh. R. S. Ferrers well as many others.
Mr. Pochekin has been living in Spain since 1993, when he was appointed at the “Concervatorio del Liceo” de Barcelona. Pochekin’s students have received more than 50 prizes in the national and international competitions. Stanislav Pochekin gives master classes in Europe and America, and he has been invited to serve as a Jury member at many prestigious national and international competitions in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Mexico and Russia. Currently Mr. Pochekin is the Artistic Director of the International Piano Competition in Andorra, Spain.

Jerome Rose / United States

Jerome Rose, hailed as "the Last Romantic of our own age" and one of America's most distinguished pianists, has been heard in major concert halls across five continents. A Gold Medalist from the International Busoni Competition, Mr. Rose began his international career while still in his early twenties. His catalogue of critically acclaimed recordings on Monarch Classics includes the Liszt Concerti with the Budapest Philharmonic, Liszt's Transcendental Etudes, the Complete Schumann Sonatas, "Davidsbundlertanze", and "Kreisleriana", the Last Three Beethoven Sonatas, and the Complete Ballades & Fantasy of Chopin.
He was a pupil of Adolph Baller when, at the age of 15, he debuted with the San Francisco Symphony. A graduate of the Mannes College and the Juilliard School of Music, Jerome Rose studied with Leonard Shure and Rudolf Serkin at Marlboro. In 1961 he was a winner of the Concert Artists Guild award and was also a Fulbright Scholar in Vienna. Mr. Rose has given masterclasses at the Moscow Conservatory, the Chopin Academy in Warsaw, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Munich Hochschule, and is a frequent guest at the Toho Conservatory of Music in Tokyo, Japan. He is on the Faculty of the Mannes College of Music and is Founder/Director of the International Keyboard Institute & Festival held every summer in New York City.
Mr. Rose’s performances at the Festival have been recorded by WFMT Chicago and NPR for worldwide radio broadcast. Mr. Rose appeared last year in recital in France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Spain, Croatia and Korea and served on the Faculties at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris and the Salzburg Mozarteum, where he will return next summer for recitals and classes. This fall he toured major cities in China (Shanghai, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Beijing), giving recitals and masterclasses, and promoting his 4 volume book “Becoming a Virtuoso”. He continues this season with masterclass and recital appearances in the US and Europe. Mr. Rose was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Music from the State University of New York for his lifetime achievement in music.

Sontraud Speidel / Germany

Sontraud Speidel, who won the J. S. Bach International Piano Competition in Washington D. C. at the age of 18, is a prolific performer and recording artist. Speidel, who has given recitals in both solo and chamber music, has performed with orchestras throughout Europe, North and South America, Israel and Asia. The first performer to record the piano works of Fanny Hensel, Speidel has recorded over 20 CDs. Her recording of all works for two pianos by Max Reger, together with Evelinde Trenkner, won the first prize of "Audiophile Reference" in the solo instrument category. Awarded the SIlver Cross for special cultural achievement by the city of Vienna, Speidel's teachers include Branka Musulin, Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen, Geza Anda and Stefan Askenase. Sontraud Speidel currently serves as Professor of Piano at the State Music University of Karlsruhe, Germany. Speidel regularly conducts master courses in Austria, Greece, Israel, Brazil and Korea, and has served as a juror of many international competitions.

Blanca Uribe / Colombia

Born in Bogotá, Colombia, into a family of professional musicians, Blanca Uribe studied in Vienna at the Academy of Music and Dramatic Art with Professor Richard Hauser and in New York at The Juilliard School with Rosina Lhevinne and Martin Canin. With an extensive repertoire ranging from Scarlatti to contemporary works, Uribe is particularly noted for her interpretations of the 32 sonatas of Beethoven, which she has performed in cycle on several occasions, and the complete Iberia Suite of Isaac Albeniz. Ms. Uribe enjoys a busy career as recitalist and soloist in Europe, South America and the United States. As a chamber musician, she has appeared with the Chicago, Orion and Brentano String Quartets, with Ani and Ida Kavafian and with the Philadelphia Chamber Ensemble.
She participated in the First International Busan Chamber Music Festival in Korea. Uribe’s honors include the General Francisco de Paula Santander Medal, awarded for outstanding contribution to Colombian Culture, the Order of Saint Charles, which she received in 1986 from the President of Colombia, and an Honorary Doctorate from the Valle University in Colombia. She was also recipient of the First Dutchess County Artist Award. Blanca Uribe has served on the juries of a number of international competitions such as the Busoni, AXA, Honens, Paloma O’Shea, Cleveland and the Beethoven in Vienna.
For 36 years, she held the George Sherman Dickinson Professorship of Music at Vassar College and is currently Professor of Piano at Eafit University in Medellin, Colombia.

Arie Vardi / Israel

Beginning his artistic career at the age of fifteen, Israeli born Arie Vardi went on to receive international acclaim as one of the country’s foremost pianists. After winning the Chopin Competition in Israel, he appeared with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra with Zubin Mehta, and upon winning the George Enescu International Competition in Bucharest, he played numerous concerts throughout Europe. Alongside his study of music at the Rubin Academy, he succeeded in achieving a degree in law at Tel Aviv University. Vardi continued his piano studies in Basel with Paul Baumgartaner and studied composition with Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen. He has performed widely as soloist with major orchestras under the baton of Semion Bychkov, Sergio Commissiona, Lukas Foss, Kurt Masur, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Zubin Mehta, Paul Paray, Paul Sacher and David Zinman, among others. His concert tours have taken him to Eastern and Western Europe, the United States, Latin America, the Far East, Australia and Japan. His first Russian tour, in 1992, included performances in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities. Vardi performs regularly as soloist-conductor, playing the complete set of concerti by Bach and Mozart, part of which he has played on the Hammerfluegel. In recent years he has specialized in the literature of the Impressionist period, including the entire repertoire of Debussy and Ravel. His RCA records have won international acclaim and prizes. Mr. Vardi’s extensive repertoire includes various Israeli works, many of which were dedicated to him. In addition to his concert career, Arie Vardi is a professor of piano at the Hochschule fuer Musik in Hannover and at the Rubin Academy of Music, Tel Aviv University, where he served as its director and chaired the Piano Faculty. More than 30 of his students have won first prizes in international competitions. Arie Vardi is best known to television viewers for his series “Master Classes”, the family series of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra which he conducts and presents, and currently for his new series “Intermezzo with Arik”. He has been a Jury member in most of the leading international piano competitions, such as Beijing, Cleveland, Hamamatsu, Leeds, Milan, Moscow, Munich, Salt Lake City, Santander, Sydney, Tokyo, Vienna, Warsaw, and others. He is the Artistic Advisor and Chairman of the Jury of the Arthur Rubinstein International Master Competition. Mr. Vardi has held Master Classes and presented lecture recitals at the Juilliard School of Music, the Paris Conservatoire, the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, the London Royal Academy, and many other major music centers. In the 2001 season, Arie Vardi directed, conducted and played a series of five concerts with the Israel Chamber Orchestra. The series, entitled “The Piano Concerto,” featured twelve concertos ranging from Bach to the 21st century. In the 2004-5 season he launched a new weekend series with the Israel Philharmonic, “Morning Intermezzo”, where he serves as conductor and presenter. Mr. Vardi was the recipient of the Minister of Education Award in 2004 for lifetime achievement.

Oxana Yablonskaya / United States

Accepted by the famed Moscow Central School for Gifted Children by the age of six, Oxana Yablonskaya has enjoyed a long and heralded career. Upon graduation from the Moscow Conservatory, Yablonskaya won Second Grand Prix at the 1963 Long-Thibauld Competition, followed by first prize in the 1965 Rio de Janeiro Competition and second prize at the 1969 Vienna Beethoven Competition. Based on this auspicious debut, Yablonskaya received numerous tour invitations, but, due to the political environment of the Soviet Union, was not allowed to accept them. Returning to Russia, Yablonskaya earned the title of Soloist of the Moscow Philharmonic, joining an elite group of artists that included Emil Gilels, Bella Davidovich, David Oistrakh and Leonid Kogan. Denied immigration for two years, Yablonskaya finally arrived in New York in 1977 thanks in part to a petition that was signed by 45 famous American musicians, writers and actors, among them Leonard Bernstein, Steven Sondheim and Richard Rodgers. Since that time, the artist once considered “one of the best kept secrets of the Soviet Union” has since performed in more than 40 countries, in the most prestigious concert halls and with many of the finest symphony orchestras and conductors. In recent years, Yablonskaya has collaborated with her son, renowned cellist/conductor Dmitry Yablonsky, to great acclaim. Yablonskaya also is a Professor of Piano at the Julliard School, and gives numerous master classes at distinguished schools, academies and conservatories around the world.