The pianist, who proved a sensation at the competition, will be appearing in three concerts, both with the Mariinsky Orchestra and in solo and chamber programmes. The young musician will be performing a varied repertoire – Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Mariinsky Orchestra under Ignat Solzhenitsyn on 23 September, works by Mozart, Rachmaninoff and Liszt in a recital on 24 September and sonatas and trios by Nyman, Kurbatov, Rachmaninoff and Brahms in a chamber music concert on 26 September together with Sergei Poltavsky (viola) and Evgeny Rumyantsev (cello). At the Van Cliburn Competition, the “dazzling and consistent ‘Viennese’ passages and living tenderness of the sound” in his Mozart won the hearts of audiences and critics (Irina Muravieva, Rossiyskaya Gazeta).
Kholodenko’s three concerts in early September are a continuation of the theatre’s key policy of presenting St Petersburg audiences with young performers who will define the foreseeable future of classical music.
Vadym Kholodenko studied at the Kiev Lysenko Special School of Music (classes of teachers Natalia Gridneva and Boris Fyodorov). Starting at the age of thirteen, Kholodenko has made debuts as a pianist at concerts in the USA, China, Hungary and Croatia. In 2004 the musician was awarded Russia’s national youth prize Triumph and, in 2005, he moved to Moscow, enrolling as a student at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatoire (class of Vera Gornostaeva, People’s Artist of the RSFSR).
Vadym Kholodenko has been a prize-winner at numerous piano competitions, among them the Maria Callas International Competition in Athens (Grand Prix), the International Music Competition in Sendai (1st prize) and the Franz Schubert International Competition in Dortmund (1st prize). His most recent achievements include the Gold Medal at the XIV Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (June 2013), following his victory at which the young pianist will be embarking on a major tour of the USA, Europe and Asia in the course of the new concert season.
