Van Cliburn gold, silver medalists to play at Western

Western Washington University’s Sanford Hill Piano Series will present both the Gold and Silver medalists of the 2013 Van Cliburn competition during its 2014-15 season.

Cliburn Gold winner Vadym Kholodenko will play at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 21 in the Performing Arts Center Concert Hall. Silver medalist and international piano prodigy Beatrice Rana will play on Friday, Feb. 6, 2015, and the season will close with Swiss-born American pianist Gilles Vonsattel on April 11, 2015.

Vadym Kholodenko was born in 1986 in Kiev, Ukraine. The first musician in his family, in 1994 he enrolled at Kiev’s Mykola Lysenko Special Music School under professors Natalia Grydneva and Borys Fedorov. At the age of 13, he made his first appearances in the United States, China, Hungary and Croatia. In 2004, Kholodenko was awarded the Russian Youth National Prize “Triumph” and in 2005 moved to Moscow to study at the Moscow State Conservatoire under the tutelage of the Honored Artist of the USSR, Professor Vera Gornostaeva.

The quadrennial Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, widely recognized as one of the world’s most important competitions, was organized by a group of music teachers and citizens from Fort Worth, Texas in 1962 to commemorate American pianist Van Cliburn’s sensational victory at the first Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow in 1958. His performance in Moscow heralded a new confidence in the quality of American music-making, as well as a new era in cultural relations between East and West. The completion celebrates Cliburn’s historic achievement and is dedicated to the discovery of the world’s finest pianists.

The 2014-15 Sanford Hill Piano Series is offering subscriptions for the first time. Subscription to all three performances is limited, and includes free parking and a post-performance reception with Kholodenko on stage. Tickets are available at the WWU Box Office 360-650-6146.

Created in 2002, the Sanford Hill Piano Series provides access to professional pianists from around the world for the students of Western Washington University and the greater community and is supported by its namesakes Sibyl Sanford, and WWU Emeritus Professor of Music, Ford Hill.

For more information about the series, visit wwu.edu/sanfordhill.