Van Cliburn winner Vadym Kholodenko at Macky Nov. 8
Here’s the kind of musician 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition winner Vadym Kholodenko is: Dissatisfied with cadenzas he’d heard to the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C, he decided he’d write one himself.
“While I had a flight to Dallas (for the competition), I just wrote the cadenza in nine hours,” he says. “Afterwards I made some alterations and changes and so on, but the main canvas was written in the airplane.”
The native of Ukraine and 14th winner of the quadrennial Van Cliburn competition — whose winners are justly considered the finest pianists on earth — will bring that same spirit of virtuosity and creativity to Macky Auditorium on Nov. 8 when he plays as part of the Artist Series.
“What a superb choice he is to keep the torch of Cliburn’s memory burning,” says the Star-Telegram of Fort Worth, Texas, home of the competition.
For the competition, Kholodenko played Liszt’s “Transcendental Etudes,” Stravinsky’s “Three Movements from Petroushka” and the Mozart concerto, among other pieces.
Among the pieces on Kholodenko’s Artist Series program are: Rachmaninov’s “Sonata No. 1 in D Minor, op. 28” and “Polka de V.R.”; Rachmaninov’s transcriptions of Bach’s “Suite from the Partita in E Major for Violin,” Schubert’s “Wohin,” Mendelssohn’s “Scherzo” from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Tchaikovky’s “Lullaby, op. 16, no. 1” and Kreisler’s “Liebesleid” and “Liebesfreud.”
Kholodenko won first prize at both the International Schubert Competition in 2012 and the Sendai International Music Competition in 2010. He has worked with Yuri Bashmet, Vladimir Spivakov and other distinguished conductors, and has performed around the world, from Europe to Japan, Israel and the United States. In 2009 he released recordings of Liszt, Rachmaninov and Medtner and has recorded a CD with violinist Alena Baeva. Born in Kiev, he now lives in Moscow.
Vadym Kholodenko
Winner of the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 8
WHERE: Macky Auditorium, University of Colorado Boulder campus
TICKETS: $14 and up
INFO: http://www.cupresents.org or call 303-492-8008