Zora Zucker is a representative of the European piano tradition in St Petersburg. She passed her childhood in one of cultural capitals of Central Europe, the city of Chernivtsi. The city was part of Austria-Hungary until 1939; it is the birthplace of many renowned cultural figures at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries (for example, of poet Paul Celan). Zucker entered the Lviv Conservatoire in 1959. The conservatoire where Zucker studied under Alexander Edelman, a student of Felix Blumenfeld, still remembered the likes of Karol Mikuli. Zucker has lived and worked in Leningrad-St Petersburg since 1968. It is impossible to imagine the music panorama of St Petersburg without Zora Zucker’s students. Her most prominent students in recent decades include, first and foremost, Miroslav Kultyshev (whom she trained from very early age), Alexei Zuev, Maria Derevyagina, Alexei Vyakhirev, and Evgeny Zaretsky; Zucker has also helped her daughter Inga Dzekzer, Professor of Chamber Ensemble Department of the St Petersburg Conservatoire, reach professional heights.
Three students of Zora Zucker at the Specialised Middle School of the St Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire will appear at the concert: Maria Karzova, Ulyana Degtyareva, and Ivan Kachkin. Zora Zucker says about her students:
“Masha Karzova grew up in a family of musicians and took part in many concerts of my class at such venues as the Small Hall of the Saint-Petersburg Philharmonic or the Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Memorial Museum-Apartment; she played with Mikhail Golikov’s orchestra, took part in various competitions. She is also distinguished by her perfect pitch and fabulous piano skills. Her manner has recently gained seriousness and depth. This is especially evident when she performs Bach’s Italian Concerto or Tchaikovsky’s Dumka. It is a great achievement at her age.
Ulyana Degtyareva is a delicate and spirited creature, a small, fragile girl with unchildish-like manner. They say she is a spitting image of my manner, of the way I play. She trains diligently and tirelessly, plays a lot. She has taken part in concerts of my class in Russia and abroad. Her recently improved piano technique and better musicality allowed us to take greater risks and tackle such complicated pieces as Beethoven’s Rondo alla ingharese quasi un capriccio, Chopin’s Variations brillantes, and Tchaikovsky’s stylistically complex Valse Sentimentale.
Ivan Kachkin has only recently become a student of mine. He previously studied at the Rachmaninoff Children’s School of Music and Specialised Middle School of the St Petersburg Conservatoire under Pavel Raikerus. The boy has a remarkable character and intellect; he is well-read (not only in music, he also likes mineralogy and biology, for example). I have managed to help him gain creative freedom recently and now he shines in Romantic repertory, for example in Schumann’s and Brahms’ works.”
