Nina Lelchuk
Adjunct Associate Professor
Fields of Study:
Piano Performance
Degrees and Studies:
PhD, Moscow State Conservatory
Biographical Information:
Nina Lelchuk is one of the most highly praised and respected pianists in the world of classical music today. Her sensational debut in Carnegie Hall was greeted with brilliant reviews by New York critics. The New York Times wrote that she "belongs to the top rank of pianists". Since then, Lelchuk has performed in prestigious concert series and appears as soloist with major orchestras on five continents in 28 countries.
All her performances receive similar acclaim and her audiences are thrilled by the fiery temperament, emotional depth, and rare warmth of her playing. Lelchuk was awarded international prizes at the Chopin competition in Warsaw, the Marguerite Long Piano competition in Paris, and the Van Cliburn Competition in Fort Worth. At the Paris competition, Lelchuk won the Charles Munch special prize, equal to the competition's first prize for the best talent.
Nina Lelchuk has performed on the world's leading concert stages, including Carnegie Hall (numerous appearances), Avery Fisher Hall, Kennedy Center, London's Wigmore Hall and Barbican Center, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Louvre in Paris, La Scala in Milan, and many others.
She has played with many orchestras all over the world, including the Cleveland Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Chicago Sinfonietta, Vancouver Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, L'Orchestre de Paris, Moscow State Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Leipzig Gewandhaus, and L'Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome under conductors such as Leonard Slatkin, André Previn, Roberto Benzi, Kurt Masur, Gennady Roshdestvensky, Evgeny Svetlanov, Günther Herbig, Yoshimi Takeda, and Yoel Levi.
Nina Lelchuk appeared in international festivals throughout the world; some of those include Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, the International Institute & Festival at Mannes College, the Shandelee Summer Festival (New York), the International Rachmaninov Festival (Maryland), the Festival Internationale Autunno Musicale in Como and Stresa (Italy), the Melbourne Autumn Music Festival (Australia), the Chopin Festivals in Dushniki (Poland) and Mariánské Lázn? (Czech Republic), Cervantino (Mexico), Menton (France), Lugano and St. Moritz (Switzerland), and Sapporo (Japan).
The Pathé-Marconi Company in France and the EMS Label in Brussels have released Lelchuk's recordings in Europe. The highly acclaimed EMS recording includes Mendelssohn's "Song Without Words" and Schumann's Piano Concerto with the Berlin Radio Orchestra. Her first American recording on the Telarc Label won high praise by music critics all over the world. The New York Daily News called her performance on the recording "miracles of poetic virtuosity." The International Piano Archives in Maryland video-taped her historic world premiere performance of the first two versions of Rachmaninov's First Piano Concerto and released it to the public.
Besides concretizing, Lelchuk is in great demand as a pedagogue. She has prepared many students for international competitions, including 21 prize winners. She held the position of distinguished professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, at the Moscow Conservatory and Columbia University (Teachers College).
Among her pupils are Michael Rudy, Victoria Postnikova, Michael Faerman, Maxim Shostakovich, Mark Zeltser, Eva-Maria Alexander, Yaeko Yamane, Gloria Chuang, Andrew Sewell.
Lelchuk's master classes achieved much success and acclaim throughout the world. She gave master classes at the Manhattan School of Music and the Mannes College in New York, Toho School of Music in Tokyo, Royal College in London, Moscow Conservatory, the Helsinki Sibelius Academy, Sösterberg International Music Festival in Holland, Maryland University, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and various universities and conservatories in the Philippines, Taiwan and Korea.
In addition, Ms Lelchuk has written books and several articles on the art of piano playing. Her book The Art of Piano Playing was published in Russia. Her other book Tales of the Soviet Musical Life (which is written in English) is ready to be published. Several of Lelchuk's articles about her method of "Natural Piano Technique" were published in Japan, Russia, Belgium, England and Germany.
At the age of 13, Lelchuk was the youngest student ever to be accepted by the famed Moscow Conservatory, where she earned her doctorate and served as a professor for 15 years.