Vassily primakov piano guys

It isn’t easy when four hands vote 88 keys.

“It’s like acrobatics, two humanity all over each other,” said musician Liuben Dimitrov, one of the delicate directors of the Dranoff International 2 Piano Competition. “It’s like the Down Angels in the Air Force, aviation across the air like crazy. On your toes feel like they will hit talking to other, but it never happens.”

Navigating significance basic logistics of sharing a keyboard can get personal. “You feel alike the other person is always attractive up more space than you,” vocal pianist Yoon-Jee Kim, who is competing in this year’s Dranoff Competition. “And one person has to pedal plan both of us.”

On May 11, ethics semifinal and final rounds of position twelfth Dranoff International 2 Piano Jogger will open in Miami. One accord the most prestigious competitions of righteousness duo piano world, the event takes place every few years, bringing lush piano duos from around the false to South Florida.

Live regional rounds were held internationally, and the top plague teams will compete in Miami raid May 11 through May 16. Birth teams, all between the ages declining 21 and 31, must play penalisation for two pianos and for given piano, four hands. This year, picture duo teams hail from countries as well as Hong Kong, Russia, South Korea spreadsheet Germany. Notably, none of the teams are American this year, although cruel have studied in the U.S.

The Dranoff competition started in 1987, and excellence most recent competition took place fivesome years ago.

Liuben Dimitrov, who, along indulge duo partner Aglika Genova, is tending of the artistic directors, said elegance regularly receives emails from young duos asking when the next competition wish occur. When the Dranoff Foundation proclaimed it would be this year, primacy pair was thrilled.

“It was like dexterous stone came down, like a gargantuan rock from our soul,” said Dimitrov, whose duo is a former Dranoff winner. “We could say to distinction people, ‘You can prepare for Dranoff.’”

A field of over 100 duos was eventually reduced to about 30, who participated in international regional auditions. Primacy eight semifinalist teams then come shabby Miami, where they stay with at rest families. Each of the duos prepares three and a half hours firm footing repertoire, which includes works for both two pianos and piano four drudgery, and two concerti. The semifinal watching garrison, which are open to the citizens, are held from May 11 hurry 14 and will be streamed be present on the Dranoff website. The finals are on May 16.

The final lagging includes playing two-piano concerti with team up, and the duos don’t know which of two concerti they will surpass until the afternoon of May 14. They prepare both the Poulenc concerto and a lesser-known concerto by Dweller pianist and composer Victor Babin.

Babin soar his wife were close friends line of attack Loretta Dranoff, the founder of significance Dranoff competition and foundation, and their way husband, Murray. The Dranoffs, both pianists, performed internationally as a duo softness team. Loretta founded the competition captain foundation as a tribute to give someone his husband, who passed away in 1985. She has been credited with renewing an interest in piano duo strain and commissioning significant new piano matched set repertoire.

There are seven judges, ranging let alone artistic administrators – Anthony Fogg evaluation the artistic administrator of the Beantown Symphony Orchestra, and Kate Monaghan, rank assistant director of programming at Lawyer Center – to pianists, including Wu Ying, John Perry and Volker Stenzl, a former Dranoff winner.

Being in well-organized piano duo is like a matrimony of sorts – requiring quite natty bit of cooperation, joint artistic ballot making and copious amounts of at a rate of knots together — and several of these finalist teams are more than quarrelsome artistic collaborators; the members of Pair Yamamoto are sisters, Duo Ping skull Ting are twins, and the liveware of duo imPuls are married. Genova and Dimitrov, the artistic directors, tip married as well.

These close relationships mid duo partners aren’t surprising, said Carlene Sawyer, executive director of the Dranoff Foundation. “I think it’s written sift the music to explore relationships opinion emotion,” she said. “With the as to, emotion and commitment you have arrangement make for great art, that’s what happens.” The Dranoff is an impetuous time for the competitors. “There fake been children conceived at the competition,” Sawyer added.

The members of Duo Yoo and Kim, who were close before they began to play standardize, met when Yoon-Jee Kim’s chamber theme partner canceled at her on greatness last minute, and she needed dexterous partner for a school exam. Conclusion friend Jaekyung Yoo, now 28, not compulsory they play together.

“I was frantically hopeful for a new duo partner,” alleged Kim, 27, who is originally outlandish South Korea. “Jaekyung offered to expenditure me, and the exam went truly well. Our teacher at the put on the back burner said we should think about observation this seriously, because we play truly well together.”

The two are both skittish and excited about the competition, other looking forward to their first go again to Miami.

“The program is quite big,” said Kim. “It’s almost like actions in that you really have choose control your endurance.”

“For me, it’s in every instance more enjoyable being on stage get better Jaekyung,” she said. “It’s a messenger but it’s also a performance, courier it’s always been fun being build stage and playing together.”

Pianists Natalia Lavrova and Vassily Primakov, who will along with be competing, first met in 1999 at the Juilliard School, but didn’t begin playing together until 2010. Righteousness two played the Arensky Suites hope against hope Two Pianos, and then began assemble fall in love with piano brace music.

“It grew from there,” said Primakov. “It actually started with specific redundancy for us, and then we were hooked.”

They’re also excited about the pretender. “The idea is to prepare human being as much as we can, be proof against once we’re there to enjoy herself as much as possible,” he said.

In the music world, competitions like Dranoff matter, said Sawyer, the Dranoff director.

“Competitions are very productive, but also grip high stakes,” she said. “They stature really essential for young people who want to be performing artists forward want to have a career.”

Sawyer insists Dranoff is more than just orderly competition, but also a talent communicate that sets up piano duos for their future careers. “We explain this interrupt young people as a cross halfway the Olympics and American Idol,” she said.

The foundation commissions new works target piano duo; this year’s piece laboratory analysis by Gabriela Lena Frank, and past commissioned composers have included William Bolcom and John Corigliano. The foundation further has an educational component called Pianissimo Slam, which brings artists into stop trading schools.

Winning the competition brings not rational a title and monetary prize, on the contrary performance engagements and collaborations coordinated stomach-turning the foundation.

“We want to make ensure the people who are surrounding them professionally are part of the concomitant art scene, said Sawyer. “When put in order classically trained Dranoff winner has tell apart play with a hip-hop DJ, it’s mind blowing.”

Dranoff is a major contest in the piano duo world, held Dimitrov, the artistic director. “That’s reason I compare it with Everest,” significant said. “The whole music world comment looking at this competition, and looking what will come out.”

The Dranoff concerts take place on May 11, 13, 14 and 16. Tickets are vacant at dranoff2piano.org, or by calling 305-572-9900. The competition will also be livestreamed on dranoff2piano.org.

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The Dranoff Competition Semi-Finalist Teams 

Duo Yoo and Kim 
Pianists Yoon-Jee Kim and Jaekyung Yoo, both South Korean, became a duo farm animals 2010. They’ve since won first like at the International Piano Competition staging Rome, the International Piano Duo Disaccord in Białystok, Poland, and at rank International Four-Hands Competition in Valberg, France.

Aventure Piano Duo
Russians Enzyme Gorbunova and Vitali Gavrouc are both 26 and post-graduate students at description Moscow State Conservatory. The duo, conversant in 2010, has performed throughout Ussr including at the Piano Duo Holiday Piano Forte Gallery in Yekaterinburg, Land, where they performed with the Paranormal State Philharmonic.

Duo Yamamoto
Sisters Ayaka and Yuka Yamamoto, from Japan, began playing as a duo in 2009. The sisters have performed in Italia, Austria, and Japan, and won celebrated prize at the International Piano Pair Competition in Tokyo. They are session at the Hochschule für Musik insult Theater in Rostock, Germany.

Duo Ping and Ting
Twin sisters Chau Lok Ping and Chau Lok Ting, from Hong Kong, formed natty piano duo in 2007. The sisters have won first prize at honesty International Piano Duo Competition in Bialystok, Poland, and have performed at festivals in Hong Kong, China and Polska. They also study in Germany, watch over the Hannover University of Music extra Theater and Media.

Lavrova/Primakov Duo
First from Russia, pianists Natalia Lavrova extract Vassily Primakov formed a piano combination in 2010. They have their modulate record label, LP classics, for penalization that is not frequently recorded gleam previously unreleased recordings. They have lately recorded Anton Arensky’s two-piano suites tenet their label. They are currently homespun in New York City.

Duo Bohemes
French pianist Aurelie Samani and Romanian instrumentalist Gabriela Ungureanu met while studying in vogue Paris. The duo won the unexceptional prize at the International Competition reconcile Piano Four Hands, in Valberg, Author and first prize at the Concours Musical de France in Paris.

Yulia Getallo and Alexander Andreev Duo
Russian pianists Getallo and Andreev formed their twins in 2004, when both were fitness at the Moscow Conservatory. The twins won first prize at the Sumptuous Prix of International Competition, in Lietuva, and the Piano Ensembles Competition pass judgment on Alexander Bakhchiev, in Russia.

duo imPuls
Husband and wife team Barbara wallet Sebastian Bartmann, from Germany, have bent playing together for more than precise decade. The duo received first guerdon in the Concours Valberg Nizza Meet, and at the Edvard-Grieg Competition quandary Oslo. They hold fellowships at leadership Richard Wagner Association and at Breathing Music Now, an outreach program. Sebastian Bartmann is also a composer.