MEET THe Artists
Gwendolyn Mok, piano
Born in New York City, Ms. Mok has appeared in many of the world's leading concert halls, including the Barbican, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Davies Symphony Hall, and the Hong Kong Performing Arts Center. She is frequently invited to play and record with major international orchestras, such as the London Symphony, the Philharmonia, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Beijing Philharmonic Orchestra and the Residency Orchestra of the Hague.
Ms. Mok is a recording artist for Nonesuch/Elektra, Musical Heritage Society, Musician Showcase Recordings, Cala Records, and EMI. Her highly acclaimed debut CD with the Philharmonia of Ravel's “Piano Concerto in G Major” on the Cala label was nominated for an Alternative Edison award. A second Cala recording of Saint-Saëns’s “Africa—Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra” with the London Philharmonic has been equally applauded. Three solo CDs, “Ravel Revealed” (Ravel’s piano works) and “Brahms: Late Piano Works,” and “Legacy, The Spirit of Beethoven” were recorded on historic pianos for the Musicians Showcase Recording label. All (3)CDs received outstanding reviews and are broadcast frequently around the world. Recently two new CDs have been released: Poldowski Art Songs with soprano Angelique Zuluaga and pianist Gwendolyn Mok on the Delos label and EKTA Trilogy, featuring Mok as soloist on EKTA II, a concerto written for her by composer Brent Heisinger.
As a chamber musician, Ms. Mok appears regularly in the San Francisco Symphony Chamber Music Series, as well as in the San Jose Chamber Society and the Sacramento Chamber Society series. She collaborates often with members of the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra. A popular soloist with the Symphony Silicon Valley, Ms. Mok co-produced and appeared in four sold-out performances of The Gershwin Radio Hour. In 2016 Ms. Mok was named President’s Scholar by San Jose State University, the highest honor given to an outstanding faculty member for their scholarship and research. Mok was also presented with the Artistic Acheievement Award by the College of Humanities & the Arts in 2008.
Ms. Mok began her studies at the Juilliard School of Music, completed her undergraduate work at Yale University, and earned her Masters and Doctorate at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She is currently Coordinator of Keyboard Studies at San Jose State University and maintains a busy performing and recording schedule. Find out more
Jeffrey LaDeur, piano
Jeffrey LaDeur is known for his rare blend of insight, spontaneity, and approachable, communicative stage presence. Clic Musique Magazine (France) lauded “…an irreproachable legato, a beautiful palette of nuances, and an always well-balanced sound.” Having inherited a rich tradition of pianism and interpretation from Annie Sherter, student of Vlado Perlemuter and Alfred Cortot, LaDeur has established himself as a compelling exponent of classic and new repertoire. In March of 2018, LaDeur made his solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall on the centennial of Claude Debussy’s death. He appears regularly with orchestra and maintains a repertoire of over 40 concerti. LaDeur is the founder and artistic director of the San Francisco International Piano Festival and president of the American Liszt Society, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter.
LaDeur’s most recent solo recording features music of Liszt and was released by Music & Arts in April of 2022. Critic Henry Fogel wrote, “The beauty of his coloration, the rightness of his phrasing, and his sensitive dynamic shaping, all draw the listener into Liszt’s world.” A chamber musician of distinction, Jeffrey’s collaboration with mezzo soprano Kindra Scharich has produced To My Distant Beloved, an album exploring the connections between Beethoven and Schumann through cycles in song and solo piano works. LaDeur has collaborated with distinguished artists such as Robert Mann, Bonnie Hampton, Ian Swensen, Axel Strauss, Geoff Nuttall, and the Alexander String Quartet.
An active educator, Jeffrey offers masterclasses frequently as guest artist in universities throughout the United States and coaches gifted pre-college piano and string ensembles at Young Chamber Musicians in Burlingame, California. LaDeur holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and San Francisco Conservatory of Music in piano performance and chamber music, respectively. Jeffrey counts among his teachers Mark Edwards, Douglas Humpherys, Yoshikazu Nagai, and Robert McDonald.
JeffreyLaDeur.com SFPIANO.ORG Find out more.*
Asiya Korepanova, piano
The only pianist in the world 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 complete 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. 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. Her partners include David Shifrin, the Hermitage Piano Trio, Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, Svetoslav Stoyanov, Giora Schmidt, 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 uncompromising dedication to the arts have culminated in several projects featuring original poetry and visual art that 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.
Caring about the development of society, in 2017 Asiya founded Music for Minds, a non-profit organization that brings classical performances into classrooms and creates music festivals featuring unique programming. From 2017 through 2019, Asiya directed her brainchild 'Festival Baltimore,' a two-week chamber music series and summer academy dedicated to the performance and study of complete cycles, one of Music for Mind's projects. In just three years, the festival solidified itself as a highly original music series and academy, presenting a wide array of styles and performers.
Born in Izhevsk, Russia, to a musical family, Asiya began learning the piano at 4 years old from her mother Soreya, her first piano teacher. At the age of 6, she was taught to read music in orchestral clefs by her father Sergey, an exemplary composer, and started composing her own music. At 9, she made her orchestral debut, playing Mozart Concerto No. 8 with her own cadenza, and gave her first full philharmonic recital. Simultaneously, she began studying composition with Albert Leman, the chair of Moscow Conservatory's composition department and a student of Dmitry Shostakovich. She continued working with him until his passing in 1998. That short period has influenced all future aspects of her musical and artistic development.
As a result of her early bond with composition, she appreciates new music. In Russia, she premiered three piano concertos by Vladislav Kazenin and Shamil Timerbulatov, performing with the Svetlanov Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Petersburg Capella Symphony Orchestra, the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Tatarstan National Symphony Orchestra. In the U.S., she has premiered various works by Michael Daugherty, Thomas Sleeper, Orlando Garcia, among others.
Throughout her early years in Russia, Ms. Korepanova received various awards for her prodigious abilities. These include the Russian Federation Presidential Award for Exceptional Achievement in the Arts, the National Award from the Republic of Udmurtia (2002), the Germany Berliner Salon Award (2003), the Russia Youth Triumph Award (2005), and the title of Honored Artist of Udmurtia (2009).
In 2012, Asiya moved to the United States at the invitation of renowned pianist and maestro Santiago Rodriguez, to earn a Doctoral degree under his guidance at the University of Miami. Later that year, she was awarded the Gold Medal at the Nena Wideman International Piano Competition—an achievement that proved invaluable in establishing her concertizing career in the U.S. In 2017, she added a University of Miami Artist Diploma degree to her portfolio, having earned it in the studios of Kevin Kenner and Tian Ying.
Asiya has since continued to garner national attention with performances at the Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, the Phillips Collection, and many other notable recital series, symphony orchestras, and festivals throughout the country. She has been featured on CNN, NPR stations, WFMT, and WETA.
In 2023, Asiya embarked on a monumental project in celebration of Rachmaninoff’s 150th birth anniversary, performing his complete solo piano music in 6 recital programs throughout the United States. She premiered her latest transcription—the Manfred Symphony by Peter Tchaikovsky; toured performing Clara Schumann, Grieg, and Rachmaninoff piano concertos; anticipates the releases of scores of her compositions: the Poéme for alto saxophone and piano and Con Brio for two pianos, as well as transcriptions of works by Mussorgsky, Franck, Amy Beach, Fauré, Berg, and Bach.
Asiya and her husband Dmitry reside in a forest-rich Boston suburb, where she has unlimited time and hours of the day to practice or listen to music. She is an avid runner, hiker, and advocate for a healthy lifestyle. Find out more
Paul Sánchez, piano
Twice GRAMMY®-nominated pianist and composer Paul Sánchez has been praised as a “great artist” (José Feghali; Cecilia Rodrigo), “the ideal interpreter... performing with clear virtuosity” (Fanfare Magazine), for his “clarity, sensitivity” (The New Yorker), and “prodigious technical capacities” (The Rehearsal Studio).
In a Fanfare Magazine review of Sánchez’ CD Magus Insipiens, featuring three of Sánchez’ song cycles, Colin Clarke declares, “This is one of the most beautiful discs in my collection.... Haunting in the extreme,” while WFMT’s Henry Fogel, former president of the League of American Orchestras and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, states, “This is hauntingly beautiful music... generously filled with melodic inspiration and evocative atmosphere.... works of originality and a distinctive musical personality.” Sherod Santos, American poet and translator of the Sappho texts in Sánchez’ song cycle The journey, describes Sánchez’ composition as “a magnificent achievement, a work of great innovation and hypnotic effect, impossible to walk away from unmoved.” Sánchez’ The journey is the subject of a chapter in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Song Cycles: Analytical Pathways Toward Performance, alongside chapters on works by Samuel Barber, William Bolcom, George Crumb, Benjamin Britten, Jennifer Higdon, Libby Larson, Francis Poulenc, Dmitri Shostakovich, and other composers.
Sánchez is a recording artist with ten CD releases as of 2022, and his compositions have been featured on the Soundset Recordings and Albany labels. Recent releases include his GRAMMY®-nominated Dreams of a New Day (Cedille Records) with baritone Will Liverman, which was BBC Music Magazine’s “Album of the Month” and reached number 1 on Billboard’s “Traditional Classical Albums” chart; his GRAMMY®-nominated Lord How Come We Here? (Navona Records), with mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges and baritone Will Liverman; Seria Ludo - Piano Music by Graham Lynch (Divine Art Records), for which Fanfare Magazine praised Sánchez’ “performance.... grand, noble, reflective, yet shot through with internal light;” and Mysteria Fidei (Innova Records) with his wife, soprano Kayleen Sánchez, as the duo Far Song, performing new music of David M. Gordon and praised by Fanfare Magazine for its “transcendental performances.” His live recordings of songs by Charles Ives, with William Sharp, are featured in the film “Charles Ives’ America” (Naxos Records), which, according to JoAnn Falletta, “may very well be the most important film ever produced about American music.” His next album release will feature Shawn Okpebholo’s Songs in Flight, performed with Rhiannon Giddens, Will Liverman, Reginald Mobley, and Karen Slack.
Of his performances of Ives and Gershwin for Joseph Horowitz’ Music Unwound: American Roots, a program funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Horowitz stated, “Sanchez’ account of Rhapsody in Blue was original - the most bewitchingly lyric I have ever encountered.”
His focus on new music has resulted in world-premiere performances of several important new works composed for him, including Fabular Arcana, a four-movement piano concerto by David M. Gordon; Consolation New, a work for one pianist playing two pianos, by David M. Gordon; White Book 3 and Absolute Inwardness, solo piano works by Graham Lynch; Mysteria Incarnationis, written for Kayleen and Paul Sánchez by David M. Gordon; and Two Black Churches, written for baritone Will Liverman and Sánchez by Shawn Okpebholo.
Sánchez is an audio engineer and producer, with credits for albums published by Albany Records, Divine Art Records, Innova Records, Navona Records, and Soundset Recordings.
Dr. Sánchez served as Director of Piano Studies at the College of Charleston, on faculty at Baylor University and Wheaton College, and is a co-founder of the San Francisco International Piano Festival. He studied with Tamás Ungár; with Maria Teresa Monteys and Alicia de Larrocha, as a Fulbright fellow; and with Douglas Humpherys at the Eastman School of Music. Sánchez is a Steinway Artist. Find out more.
Kindra Scharich, mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano Kindra Scharich has been praised by the San Francisco Chronicle for her “fearless technical precision,” “deep-rooted pathos” and “irrepressible musical splendor.” As a dedicated recitalist, she has performed more than 250 art songs in 15 languages, and enjoys the full complement of recital, concert and opera engagements alike. Ms. Scharich has sung more than 40 roles from Monteverdi to Philip Glass, and been engaged in a number of premières and new works, including: John Adam’s Antony & Cleopatra (San Francisco Opera), Bright Sheng’s Dream of the Red Chamber (San Francisco Opera) Laura Kaminsky’s Today it Rains (Opera Parallèle) and Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves (West Edge Opera, west coast première) Scharich’s recordings include: In meinem Himmel: The Mahler Song Cycles, with the Alexander String Quartet (2018), To my Distant Beloved, with pianist Jeffrey LaDeur (2020) and Chosen Eyes, with pianist Ricardo Ballestero (2021). Find out more
Chili Ekman, violin
Violinist Chili Ekman, 21, is studying with Professor Daniel Phillips, about to begin his fourth year at The Juilliard School. He attended the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Pre-college and has been part of various music organizations in the Bay Area of California, such as the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the Young Chamber Musicians. In 2022, Chili made his solo debut with the Stockton Symphony. Ekman has worked with many of the world’s leading chamber musicians, including David Finckel, Paul Neubauer, Robert Levin and Daniel Phillips, among others. Chili has also worked with ensembles such as the Miro, Pacifica, Calidore, Harlem and American quartets. Recently, Chili founded the Candide Quartet at Juilliard and has attended residencies at Madeline Island and Music in the Vineyards festivals.
Simon Barrad, baritone
The versatility of Grammy-nominated baritone, Simon Barrad, has been heard in genre-bending concerts across the United States and Europe. His talent for unique and innovative programming and arranging – melding new and old, jazz and drama, classical technique and heartfelt folk idioms – has led to recent features at the Metropolitan Opera, Wigmore Hall in London, the Columbus Symphony, the Ravinia Festival, Stanford Live, the Marlboro Music Festival, and Cincinnati Opera. The 2015/16 Fulbright scholar to Finland has also headlined several concerts in Europe including performances at Helsinki’s Musiikkitalo, Finland’s National Opera House, and the Berlin Philharmonie. Through his performing and as a former mentor for ArtSmart, which provides free music and singing lessons to teenagers in underserved communities, Simon strives to build a more equitable world of empathy and understanding through music.
Simon is also an avid lover and performer of jazz, new music, and ensemble singing. He is a four-time Downbeat magazine national award winner for vocal jazz, and he has performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival, ADCA conventions across the country, and the Grammys as a member of the Grammy vocal jazz ensemble. Simon regularly performs with Austin-based ensemble, Conspirare, and was the baritone soloist for their national tour of Considering Matthew Shepard. In the realm of new music, he has consistently championed new works, giving premiere performances of works by John Harbison, David Lang, Craig Hella Johnson, Mason Bates, and others, as well as performing at the John Duffy Composer Institute under the direction of Libby Larsen. As a Jewish musician, he served as the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur soloist for over a decade at the historic Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati, and is currently the soloist at San Francisco’s Congregation Sherith Israel. He recently founded the musical group JIVE: Jewish Innovative Voices & Experiences with countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen and pianist Ronny Michael Greenberg.
Mr. Barrad holds a Master of Music degree from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music where he studied with Kenneth Shaw. He has collaborated with artists including Mitsuko Uchida, Jonathan Biss, Awadagin Pratt, and Ignat Solzhenitsyn. Mr. Barrad also holds a BM in Voice and a French Language minor from the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University, Long Beach, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude and was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. He has completed word for word translations and IPA transcriptions of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri, Borodin’s Prince Igor and a side by side comparison of the libretti of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and Katerina Izmailova.
Stephen Prutsman, piano
Stephen Prutsman has been described as one of the most innovative musicians of his time. Moving easily from classical to jazz to world music styles as a pianist and composer, Prutsman continues to explore and seek common ground and relationships in the music of all cultures and languages.
In the early 2000s Stephen was Artistic Partner with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, where he wrote several new works for the orchestra, led performances of other composers as a conductor and pianist, and developed the orchestra's contemporary and world music series. Later he was the Artistic Director of the Cartagena International Festival of Music, South America’s largest festival of its kind, programming and curating concerts with themes ranging from Mozart celebrations, to eclectic evenings of folk and popular music of the Americas, to hybrid programs fusing art and dance music of multiple musical dimensions.
In the early 90’s he was a medal winner at the Tchaikovsky and Queen Elisabeth Piano Competitions, and received the Avery Fisher Career Grant. Since then Stephen has performed the classical concerto repertoire as soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras and his classical discography includes acclaimed recordings of the Barber and McDowell concerti with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, recordings of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, and a solo jazz album entitled "Passengers".
Born in Los Angeles, Stephen first began playing the piano by ear at age 3 before moving on to more formal music studies. In his teens and early 20s he was the keyboard player for several art rock groups including Cerberus and Vysion (and was a winner of television’s “The Gong Show”!) During those years, he worked regularly as a solo jazz pianist playing in many southern California clubs and lounges and was the music arranger for a nationally syndicated televangelist program.
As a composer, Stephen’s long collaboration with Grammy Award winning Kronos Quartet has resulted in over 40 arrangements and compositions for them. Other leading artists and ensembles who have performed Stephen’s compositions and arrangements include Leon Fleisher, Dawn Upshaw, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, Yo-Yo Ma, Spoleto USA, and the Silk Road Project. In 2010, his song cycle “Piano Lessons” was premiered by Ms. Upshaw and Emanuel Ax at Carnegie Hall (New York), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Disney Hall (Los Angeles) and the Barbican Centre (London). As a pianist or arranger outside of the classical music world he has collaborated with such diverse personalities as Tom Waits, Rokia Traore, Jon Anderson of “YES”, Sigur Rós and Asha Bhosle. He has scored for a variety of ensembles 15 silent films from the 1920s which are regularly presented at various venues throughout the world.
He is a board member of several organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area promoting the well-being of people living with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and regularly produces and curates "Azure Concerts" musical performances tailored for individuals on the autism spectrum and their families. He was recently named Creative Director for Phenotypic Recordings, a new company specializing in recordings of contemporary music, and in January of 2023 Prutsman began a 2-year appointment as Visiting Artist at Stanford University.
Aveta Trio
Sarah Yuan, piano
Eunseo Oh, violin
Elliott Kim, cello
The Aveta Trio is the 2021 Gold Medal winner of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition (Junior Division). Formed in 2020 through Young Chamber Musicians, the Trio is coached by Susan Bates and Jeffrey LaDeur. They have performed at the San Francisco International Piano Festival (2021 & 2022), the Rossmoor Chamber Music Society – Next Generation series, the New Millennium Series at Sacramento State University, and SF Music Day at the War Memorial Veterans Building in San Francisco. They also appeared on NPR’s From The Top in October 2022.
Sarah studies computer science, Chinese language, and piano performance at Princeton University, where she is under the tutelage of Francine Kay. Elliott, also at Princeton, studies computer science and finance while continuing cello studies with Julia Lichten at the Manhattan School of Music. Eunseo is pursuing degrees in physics and mathematics at Columbia University.