Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra Third Season 2010

Conductor: Bernhard Gueller
Piano: Vassily Primakov

GRIEG Lyric suite,op.54 (Lyrisk suite)

DVOŘÁK Piano Concerto, op.33, G minor

TCHAIKOVSKY Swan lake suite, op.20a (Kalmus)

Since the release of his recording of the Chopin Piano Concertos in 2008, Vassily Primakov has been hailed as a pianist of world class importance.

Gramophone wrote that “Primakov’s empathy with Chopin’s spirit could hardly be more complete,” and the American Record Guide stated: “In every piece his touch is perfect.  Since Gilels, how many pianists have the right touch? In Chopin, no one currently playing and recording sounds as good as this! This is a great Chopin pianist.”  Music Web-International called Primakov’s Chopin Concertos CD “one of the great Chopin recordings of recent times.  These are performances of extraordinary power and beauty.” In 1999, as a teen-aged prizewinner of the Cleveland International Piano Competition, Primakov was praised by Donald Rosenberg of the Cleveland Plain Dealer: “How many pianists can make a line sing as the 19-year-old Moscow native did on this occasion? Every poignant phrase took ethereal wing. Elsewhere the music soared with all of the turbulence and poetic vibrancy it possesses. We will be hearing much from this remarkable musician.”

Vassily Primakov was born in Moscow in 1979.  His first piano studies were with his mother, Marina Primakova.  He entered Moscow’s Central Special Music School at the age of eleven as a pupil of Vera Gornostaeva. At seventeen, after a summer at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, he came to New York to pursue studies at the Juilliard School with the noted pianist, Jerome Lowenthal.  At Juilliard Mr. Primakov won the William Petschek Piano Recital Award, which presented his debut recital at Alice Tully Hall.  While a student at Juilliard, aided by a Susan W. Rose Career Grant, he won both the Silver Medal and the Audience Prize in the 2002 Gina Bachauer International Artists Piano Competition.  Later that year Primakov won First Prize in the 2002 Young Concert Artists (YCA) International Auditions, an award which presented him in solo and concerto performances throughout the USA.

In 2007 he was named the Classical Recording Foundation’s “Young Artist of the Year.”  In 2009, his Chopin Mazurkas recording was named “Best of the Year” by National Public Radio.  Vassily Primakov’s recordings for Bridge Records include: Beethoven Sonatas (BRIDGE 9251); the Chopin Concertos (BRIDGE 9278); Tchaikovsky: The Seasons and Grand Sonata (BRIDGE 9283); Chopin: 21 Mazurkas (BRIDGE 9289); Schumann: Carnaval, Kreisleriana, Arabeske (BRIDGE 9300); Dvorak: Piano Concerto, Op. 33; Poetic Tone-Pictures, Op. 85 (BRIDGE 9309); and Vassily Primakov plays Brahms, Chopin & Scriabin (BRIDGE 9315), Primakov’s first film, issued on DVD.  Upcoming releases include an all-Schubert CD, the three Chopin Sonatas, and the first volume of Primakov’s “Complete Mozart Piano Concertos” cycle, performed with the Odense Symphony Orchestra, Scott Yoo, conductor.