Music Style A pianist with an extensive repertoire (Renaissance to contemporary)

Artist History Pianist Sergey Schepkin was hailed by the American Record Guide as "the major Bach interpreter of his generation." The International Piano Quarterly recently selected his recording of the First Book of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier among the eight best ever made. Schepkin's live and recorded performances of Bach's music have also been praised by such publications as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, Fanfare, Gramophone, the BBC Music Magazine, and Piano and Keyboard, among others. Bach's keyboard works are central to Schepkins repertoire; however, he performs music of all styles, from late Renaissance to contemporary. He has won numerous prizes and awards, including the First and the Chopin Prizes in the 1999 New Orleans International Piano Competition, the 1994, 1995, and 1999 St. Botolph Club Foundation Grants, the 1999 Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation Award, the 1993 Harvard Musical Association Award, the 1992 Presser Foundation Award, as well as top prizes in the Crown Princess Sonja and All-Russia piano competitions. As recitalist and chamber player, he has performed in many parts of the world, including North America, Europe, Russia, and New Zealand. He has appeared as soloist with The Boston Pops, the St. Petersburg, Oslo, and Louisiana Philharmonics, and the Norwegian Broadcasting Symphony. He has also been heard on many radio stations in America and abroad and appeared on TV in the USA, Russia, Ireland, and Scandinavia. Schepkin, who was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, studied piano and composition at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, graduating summa cum laude in 1985. His teachers included Alexandra Zhukovsky and Grigory Sokolov (piano) and Sergey Wolfensohn (composition). He did his graduate assistantship at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1987-9. Upon arriving in Boston in 1990, he studied with Russell Sherman at New England Conservatory, where he earned an Artist Diploma in 1992 and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 1999, and where he currently serves as a professor of music history on the college faculty and as a piano and chamber music instructor on the faculty of the Preparatory School. In 1994-98, Schepkin coached with the late French-American pianist Paul Doguereau. An avid chamber musician, Schepkin has performed with such artists as James Buswell, Colin Carr, Yeesun Kim, Nicholas Kitchen, Laurence Lesser, Fenwick Smith, Lucy Stoltzman, Marcus Thompson, and Masuko Ushioda, as well as with the New Zealand and Ciompi string quartets. In 1998-2001, he was active as a founding member and the artistic advisor of the Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston. He has commissioned and premiered works by Boston composers Alan Fletcher and Christopher Trapani and won Sofia Gubaidulina's praise for the interpretation of her Chaconne. Schepkin's recordings of Bach's "Goldberg" Variations, Partitas, and The Well-Tempered Clavier were released by Ongaku Records in 1996-2000; each volume of the Partitas was nominated for the Indie Award respectively in 1997 and 1998. His CD featuring Alfred Schnittke's sonatas for violin and piano, with Joanna Kurkowicz, violin, was recently released by Bridge. Schepkin's engagements for the 2002-3 season include recitals and chamber performances throughout the United States, including a recital at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as well as a performance in the Rock Hotel PianoFest in New York City.

Instruments piano

Press Reviews "A formidable Bach pianist . . . Schepkin's performance [of the "Goldberg" Variations] has an electrifying energy . . . it is also a picture of textural clarity . . . the strands of counterpoint sing with extraordinary transparency; you will hear relationships never apparent before." Allan Kozinn, THE NEW YORK TIMES -- "An arresting musical intelligence . . . a major technique." Bernard Holland, THE NEW YORK TIMES -- "An artist of uncommon, almost singular capability and integrity." Michael Manning, THE BOSTON GLOBE -- "An awesomely well-equipped pianist . . . the kind of pianist who with every performance seems to set the bar higher for himself." Richard Dyer, THE BOSTON GLOBE -- "Throughout his all-Bach recital at the Phillips Collection . . . Schepkin sounded equally happy with the demands of early music and the possibilities of his modern Steinway." Joe Banno, THE WASHINGTON POST -- "Schepkin is an intense, tightly coiled performer . . . the precision of his technique allows him an extraordinary virtuosity. Octave passages, leaps, and trills are dazzlingly fast, even, and accurate. However, his performances never seem to be about virtuosity or projection of ego. Schepkin disappears into the music he is playing . . ." Ellen Pfeifer, THE BOSTON HERALD -- "[In his recording of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier,] Schepkin dazzlingly captures the fleet virtuosity of the improvisatory Preludes, . . . and imbues some of the darker ones . . . with haunting poetry. . . . He has at his fingertips an extraordinary array of expressive devices . . . this collection can stand comparison with the classic recording by Edwin Fischer . . ." Kate Bolton, THE BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE -- "[Schepkin's recording of the "Goldberg" Variations] grows even more beguiling with repeated hearings, and I recommend it confidently to pretty well any other Goldberg recording I've ever heard." Bernard Jacobson, FANFARE -- "For Bach Partitas, he is it." Leslie Gerber, AMAZON.COM -- "Schepkin stands out in my mind as the major Bach interpreter of his generation." Robert Haskins, AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE

Location Boston, MA - USA

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