On Saturday, December 1, 2012 at the Ukrainian Institute of America, Music at the Institute (MATI) presented “Oleh Krysa – Celebrating his 70th Birthday”. The concert showcased Oleh Krysa on violin and Tatiana Tchekina on piano. Also MATI Artistic Director, the violinist Solomiya Ivakhiv, joined the featured performers during their encores, for which they offered the Shostakovich Waltz and Polka.
The Ukrainian-American violinist OLEH KRYSA, long esteemed in the former USSR as a distinguished soloist, chamber musician, and teacher, made his American debut in 1971 at Carnegie Hall. The New York Times heralded it as “a performance to make a violinist’s reputation had he come without one.” After an 18-year absence from the American concert stage, his appearances in 1990 at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center were again met with exceptional critical acclaim, confirming his reputation as a master of his instrument.
A prominent student of David Oistrakh, Oleh Krysa won major prizes at the Wieniawski, Tchaikovsky, and Montreal international competitions and was the outright winner of the Paganini Competition. He has performed solo recitals in the world’s major music centers (including the Great and Small Halls of the Moscow Conservatory, Tchaikovsky Hall, Great Hall of the Leningrad Philharmonia, Glinka Hall, Column Hall of the Kiev Philharmonia, Warsaw Philharmonia, Concertgebouw, Brahms Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Teatro alla Scala, Semper Oper, Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, Kennedy Center, Roy Thomson Hall, Place des Arts, Suntory Hall, Minato Mirai Hall, Seoul Art Center, Taiwan’s National Concert Hall) and with the leading orchestras and ensembles of Moscow, Leningrad, Novosibirsk, Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Kyiv, Lviv, Odessa, London, Helsinki, Bergen, Stockholm, Malmo, Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Bonn, Weimar, Stuttgart, Warsaw, Krakow, Katowice, Prague, Brno, Budapest, Bucharest, Sofia, Plovdiv, Belgrade, Zagreb, Istanbul, Ankara, New York, Washington, Chicago, Miami, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Montreal, Toronto, Cape Town, Yokohama, Canberra and Wellington. He has collaborated with such distinguished conductors as Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Kirill Kondrashin, Dimitri Kitajenko, Alexander Dmitriev, Alexander Lazarev, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Mark Ermler, Yuri Simonov, Lev Markiz, Saulius Sondeckis, Arvid Jansons, Neeme Jaarvi, Eri Klas, Stepan Turchak, Volodymyr Kozhuhar, Volodymyr Sirenko, Roman Kofman, Taras Krysa, Theodore Kuchar, Virko Baley, Igor Simovich, Yerzy Semkow, Sakari Oramo, Kurt Sanderling, and James de Preist.
Oleh Krysa has also appeared at major music festivals in Europe (“Moscow Stars”, “Prague Spring”, “Warsaw Autumn”, “Sofia Weeks”, Plovdiv, Wiener Fest, Lockenhaus, Schleswig-Holstein, Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, Edinburgh, Kuhmo, Korsholm), North America (Aspen, InterHarmony, Park City, Lake Winnipisaukee, Peninsula), Australia (Perth, Townsville), and New Zealand (Wellington). A champion of contemporary music, Oleh Krysa has worked closely with Alfred Schnittke, Edison Denisov, Sofia Gubaidulina, Krzsyzstof Penderecki, Vyacheslav Artyomov, Sydney Hodkinson, Virko Baley, Myroslav Skoryk, Valentin Silvestrov, Yevhen Stankovych and Larry Sitsky. He has premiered a number of their works, many of which were written for and dedicated to him.
In addition to his outstanding solo career, Mr. Krysa was leader of the Kyiv Conservatory Quartet (1970-1973), the Leontovych Quartet (1999-2003), and the celebrated Beethoven String Quartet (1977-1987). Oleh Krysa began his teaching career as chairman of the Violin Department at the Kyiv Conservatory. In 1973 he took the same position at the Gnesins Musical and Pedagogical Institute in Moscow and, two years later, returned to his alma mater, the Moscow Conservatory, as Professor of Violin, where he remained until 1988. Currently he is Professor of Violin at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. He served as Visiting Professor at Tokyo University of Arts in 2009. He is also Honored Professor at the Lviv Music Academy (Ukraine) and an Honored Member of the Japanese String Teachers Association. Mr. Krysa has recorded on the Melodiya, Bis, Triton, Olympia, TNC Recordings, Amadis, Polskie Nagranie, and Russian Disc labels.
Oleh Krysa is married to pianist Tatiana Tchekina, who has been his partner in most of his recitals and recordings over the years. He performs on a J.B. Guadagnini 1758 on generous loan from the Eastman School of Music.
Pianist TATIANA TCHEKINA was born in Moscow to a family of singers. She studied at the Moscow and Kyiv Conservatories with Boris Zemlyansky and Vsevolod Topilin. Since 1967, Ms. Tchekina has been performing with her husband, the violinist Oleh Krysa, in solo and chamber music recitals in major concert halls throughout the former Soviet Union, Europe, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Korea, garnering worldwide critical acclaim as “…obviously, a first-rank artist in her own right…” (The Montreal Star), “an especially forceful, responsive partner” (The Washington Post), and a “distinguished musician herself and a pianist of notable talents” (Canberra Times). She has also appeared at major music festivals in Europe, the United States, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. In 2004, Ms. Tchekina was an official accompanist at the David Oistrakh International Violin Competition (Odessa, Ukraine) and in 2008 at the Qingdao International Violin Competition (China). She has recorded 20 CDs on the Melodiya, Bis, Triton, TNC, and Russian Disc labels with violinist Oleh Krysa. Ms. Tchekina taught Chamber Music at Kyiv Conservatory and Accompanying at Gnesins Musical and Pedagogical Institute in Moscow. Currently she is Assistant Professor of Accompanying at the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, NY.
“Music at the Institute” was sponsored by the Ukrainian Institute of America.
Solomiya Ivakhiv — Artistic Director • Mykola Suk — Artistic Advisor
Ukrainian Institute of America 