Epic: Violin and Piano Sonatas of Prokofiev, Strauss, and Beethoven

The pianist who performed the complete Rachmaninoff solo piano works within the composer’s 150th-anniversary year in 2023, Asiya Korepanova is a pianistic powerhouse hailed as a “tremendously gifted pianist who exhibits a singular affinity for Rachmaninoff’s Russian romantic idiom and possesses the blazing technique to fully realize his distinctive scores” (South Florida Classical Review), who is also highly recognized as a composer, visual artist, and poet.

A herald of an enormous repertoire encompassing over 60 piano concertos and solo works ranging from early Baroque period to music of living composers, Asiya is a quintessential completist.

She finds unique joy in performing collections of works such as the 24 Liszt Etudes or the entire Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach. Her emotionally charged and colorfully nuanced performances have gained her the admiration of audiences and resulted in many repeat engagements.

Asiya, a pianist and composer, draws her musical inspiration from the legacy of Dmitry Shostakovich, having studied composition under his direct disciple, Albert Leman.

She is the author of original works in multiple genres and instrumentations. Her historic solo piano transcriptions of Richard Strauss’ ‘Ein Heldenleben’, Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata, Tchaikovsky’s ‘Manfred’ Symphony,  Mussorgsky’s ‘Songs and Dances of Death’ have placed her among today’s formidable transcribers, and attracted attention of  world-renown pianists such as Lang Lang and Polina Osetinskaya, who commissioned and recorded Asiya’s transcriptions.

The most recent composition events include the world premiere recording of Asiya’s concerto for alto saxophone and piano, Poéme, performed by Thomas Giles and Liana Pailodze Harron; the publication of her transcription of Rachmaninoff’s cello sonata; the premiere of her Piano Quintet ‘I marvel at the sky’, commissioned by the Third Dimension Music Festival; and the premiere of Con Brio for two pianos, performed with her duo partner Ilya Kazantsev as a part of the Dranoff Two Piano Foundation series.

An avid chamber musician, Asiya collaborates with a wide array of musicians, such as David Shifrin, the Balourdet Quartet, the Hermitage Piano Trio, Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, Rodney Marsalis, Julian Schwarz, Eleni Katz, Irina Muresanu, and Alexander Fiterstein. She regularly performs as part of the ’88 by 20′ piano duo with her friend and former classmate, Grammy-nominated pianist Ilya Kazantsev.

Uninhibited in her artistic expression, Asiya is also sought after her work as a visual artist and poet. Her multimedia projects featuring original poetry and visual art serve as interpretive commentary for a particular cycle of piano works. These cycles include Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes, Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Tchaikovsky’s 18 Morceaux, Op. 72, and, most recently, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Asiya’s live performances of these compositions have astounded audiences and organizers alike.

American virtuoso violinist and artistic visionary Mark Peskanov, Artistic Director of Bargemusic, was born in Odessa. Peskanov sang before he could walk or talk, and soon became a star violin student at the famed Stolyarsky school. At fifteen, he emigrated to the United States, where he was immediately accepted at the Aspen Music Festival and the Juilliard School.

His phenomenal facility and musicianship won him both the Aspen and Juilliard concerto competitions, bringing him to the notice of Isaac Stern and Mstislav Rostropovich and rocketing him into the top echelons of the music world. Upon his debut with the Chicago Symphony, the Chicago Tribune called him a “sensational soloist.” The Cleveland Plain Dealer proclaimed, “Violinist Adds Glory to Odessa” and the New York Times declared, “Mark Peskanov is a tremendous young violinist and his Friday evening concert at Carnegie Hall was a triumph…He has it all—technique, temperament, and taste.”

Peskanov is a staunch champion of American composers. He premiered the John Williams Concerto with the St. Louis Symphony, and the Stanley Wolfe Concerto (written for Peskanov) with the New York Philharmonic. He has performed more than fifty concertos with virtually every major U.S. orchestra and in Europe, the Middle East, Australia, South America and Japan. Peskanov’s major accolades include the Avery Fischer Career Grant, the first Frederick R. Mann Award, and Carnegie Hall’s first Isaac Stern Award.