Jury

*Final round in Bösendorfer

"...Baruch Meir is an exceptional artist, he did a beautiful performance of my piano work entitled A LITTLE SUITE FOR CHRISTMASS which was distinguished by deep musical insights and consummate technical skill. It was certainly one of the very finest performances this work of mine has ever received."

– George Crumb, composer; 1968 Pulitzer Prize in Music; 2001 Grammy award; 2004 Musical America "composer of the year"

Pianist Baruch Meir has performed extensively in Austria, China, England, France, Israel, Portugal, Serbia and throughout the United States. Meir has recently presented two solo recitals at the Bösendorfer Saal in Vienna, as well as at the Bauman Auditorium in Portland (Bösendorfer Concert Series), Dixon Hall in New Orleans, Wise Auditorium in Jerusalem, Bates Hall in Austin, Murphy Hall in Los Angeles, and at the Toujours Mozart Festival in Salzburg. In 2008 he performed five recitals for the National Concert Season in Serbia. Currently an Artist/Teacher Associate Professor of Piano at Arizona State University, Meir maintains a busy teaching schedule in addition to his international concert career. In demand as master class clinician, Meir toured Korea's most prestigious music schools and universities including Seoul National University, Yonsei, Kookmin, Hanyang, Sunhwa, Kyoungbook and Seoul Arts High School, as well as at the Shanghai Conservatory in China and the middle-school affiliated to the conservatory (2005 & 2007), the Music Academy in Vienna (Austria), the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem (Israel), the Manhattan School of Music in NY and various conservatories and universities in the US.

A native of Israel, Meir is a summa cum laude graduate of the Rubin Academy of Music of Tel Aviv University, where he earned both bachelor and master degrees in piano performance. He holds the Artist Diploma from the Royal College of Music in London, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from ASU. His teachers include Rachel Gordon, Valter Aufheuser, Pnina Salzman, Michael Bugoslavsky, Irina Zaritskaya and Robert Hamilton. Meir's distinctions include the American-Israel Cultural Foundation Awards, the British Council fellowship, 1st place at the Klatzkin Competition for contemporary piano music and the ASU concerto competition, and
additional awards in piano competitions worldwide. Dr. Meir is the Founder, President & Artistic Director of the Bösendorfer & Schimmel USASU International Piano Competitions which he organized through a partnership between the Arizona Young Artist Committee, The Herberger College School of Music and the European Bösendorfer and Schimmel piano companies.

At Arizona State University, professor Meir maintains a class of outstanding pianists from all over the world. His students were awarded more than 43 prizes in various competitions within the past several years, including 1st Prize at the 2008 Schimmel USasu International Senior Piano Competition for Young Pianists, 1st Prize at the Young Concert Artist International Competition, and the 1st Prize at Washington International Piano Artists Competition, to name only a few. His students regularly participate in summer music festivals throughout the US and Europe including Aspen, Adamant, Brevard, Schlern, TCU/Cliburn Institute, IIYM,
Prague, New- Paltz, Wasserman, Mannes and Tel-Hai. In July 2009, Meir will join the piano faculty at Musicfest Perugia in Italy (http://www.musicfestperugia.com).

Baruch Meir is one of only 65 artists worldwide named Bösendorfer Concert Artist since the founding of the company in 1828.

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Michael Christie returns for his fourth year as the Virginia G. Piper Music Director of The Phoenix Symphony with the 2008-09 season. In addition, he continues his role during the summers as music director of the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder, a position he has held since 2000. He also serves as the music director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic. He served as chief conductor of the Queensland Orchestra in Australia from 2001-04 and continues to serve as principal guest conductor for that orchestra this season.

Christie has guest conducted many leading orchestras in Europe including the City of Birmingham Symphony, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the Swedish Radio Symphony. From 1996-98, he was associate conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic, and he has worked with all the major Finnish orchestras. In North America, Christie has conducted the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Minnesota, St. Louis and Vancouver, among many others. Recent performances include return engagements with many of these orchestras as well as the Luxembourg Philharmonic and Czech Philharmonic.

Christie first came to international attention in 1995 when he was awarded a special prize at the First International Sibelius Conductor's Competition in Helsinki at age 21. Following the competition, he became an apprentice conductor with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and subsequently worked with Daniel Barenboim, conducting both in Chicago and at the Berlin State Opera.

Michael Christie graduated from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music with a bachelor's degree in trumpet performance. His conducting teachers have included Peter Jaffe, Eiji Oue and Robert Spano.

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Internationally respected pianist and recording artist Robert Hamilton has been enthusiastically reviewed by two chief music critics for The New York Times. Harold C. Schonberg (who also authored The Great Pianists) wrote: "He is a very fine artist. All of Hamilton's playing has color and sensitivity...one of the best of the million or so around." And Donal J. Henahan reported: "It was an enthralling listening experience. We must hear this major talent again, and soon!"

Robert Hamilton studied at Indiana University with the first winner of the coveted Levintritt award, Sidney Foster and graduated summa cum laude. A move to New York City brought studies with Dora Zaslavsky of the Manhattan School, coaching from legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz and a host of monetary awards from the Rockefeller Fund and U.S. State Department, launching a strong career and the winning of five major international competitions.

Hamilton has made countless tours of four continents, appearing in the major music capitals. His orchestral engagements have included the Chicago, National, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Indianapolis, Grant Park, Chautauqua and S.O.D.R.E symphony orchestras. Hamilton has been heard over networks NPR, ABC, BBC London, Voice of America, Armed Forces Network, DRS Zurich and Radio Warsaw. He has recorded for Phillips, Orion and Summit Records. A recent 2004 release brought this comment from Audiophile Audition: "Hamilton has a blazingly brilliant approach to this repertory, delivering powerful, often breathtaking interpretations. Exposure will make any future hearing of these works seem pallid." The American Record Guide added: "Hamilton's playing is full of integrity, rare brilliance and grandeur. This is a pianist I would like to have studied with."

Professor Hamilton's students have also won many prizes and awards, appearing with the Indianapolis Symphony, Wichita Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Hudson Valley Symphony, London Westminster Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonie d'Avignon , Kammerorchester Dusseldorf, Pazardjik National Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Nagoya Gakuen Philharmonic and Korea Symphony.

Featured in the book The Most Wanted Piano Teachers in the USA, Hamilton also served as artistic director of the London Piano Festival during the 1990s. Since the year 2000, he has joined with Vladimir Feltsman and a distinguished group of prominent international pianists each July for PianoSummer in New York. Robert Hamilton is an official Steinway Artist.

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Phillip Kawin has been a member of the piano faculty of Manhattan School of Music, where he has worked with a select studio of advanced, award-winning pupils since 1989. He has developed his own teaching style, which encompasses
his personal artistic and aesthetic beliefs, while combining analytical and intuitive aspects of technique and musicianship. Coming from diverse corners of the globe, the students in Mr. Kawin’s studio over the past 18 years have won top
honors in such competitions as the Martha Argerich International, Jacob Flier International, World Piano, Thelonious Monk International (jazz piano), Melilla, Heida Hermanns, Soulima Stravinsky International, Josef Hofmann, Leschetizky,
and Young Concert Artists competitions.

American born, Kawin studied with Jules Gentil at L’École Normale de Musique de Paris, where he graduated with honors at age eighteen, and later with Dora Zaslavsky Koch at Manhattan School of Music. His teachers have also included John Perry, Gary Graffman, and Artur Balsam. In addition to his positions
in the college and precollege divisions at Manhattan School of Music, Mr. Kawin is frequently in demand as a guest master class artist-teacher throughout the U.S., Asia, Europe,Russia, and Australia. He has given classes and performed at such institutions as: Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts; Seoul National University; Taiwan National Academy of Arts in Taipei; London Music Festival at Middlesex University; Italy’s Meranofest; Moscow Conservatory International Summer School; International Academy of Music (IAM) in Russia, Spain, and Italy; Russia’s St. Petersburg Conservatory; University of Melbourne; Sydney Conservatorium; Australian National Academy of Music; PianoSummer at New Paltz (artist faculty for eleven consecutive years), Summit Music Festival in New York; Cliburn Piano Institute in Texas; and the World Piano Pedagogy Conference, where he has been an active presenter since 2004. He has served as an
overseas advisor for the Youth Music Foundation of Australia and as a competition adjudicator for a variety of organizations including Lennox International Young Artists in Texas, The Juilliard School, the Van Cliburn International Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, and Bosendorfer USA (for four years). He has served as a member of the adjudicating board for the National Alliance for Excellence, an independent organization that awards merit-based scholarships in the arts, and is currently a member of the board of the World Piano Pedagogy Conference and the Leschetizky Association in New York. Mr. Kawin can be observed on DVD teaching and presenting his multi-media lectures and master classes released by Excellence in Music, Inc. (available on www.pianovision.com).

Recent engagements have included solo performances at the Beijing International Music Festival/Academy “On the Road” inShanghai; Rimsky-Korsakov St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music, Russia; 2008 World Pedagogy Conference in Dallas; Forbidden City Concert Hall, Beijing; and Steinway Hall, New York. His solo CD of works by Beethoven, Schumann, and Prokofiev has been released on the Master Performers label and includes a bonus disc of a complete conversation with classical radio host David Dubal. Phillip Kawin is a Steinway artist.

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Dubbed "a major artist" by the Miami Herald and a "quiet maverick" by the Daily Telegraph, pianist Alexander Korsantia has been praised for the "clarity of his technique, richly varied tone and dynamic phrasing" by the Baltimore Sun, and a "piano technique where difficulties simply do not exist" by the Calgary Sun. The Boston Globe found his interpretation of Pictures of an Exhibition to be "a performance that could annihilate all others one has heard." And the Birmingham Post gushed that "his intensely responsive reading was shot through with a vein of constant fantasy, whether musing or mercurial." Ever since winning the first prize and gold medal of the Artur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition and the first prize at the Sidney International Piano Competition, Korsantia's career has taken him to many of the world's major concert halls, collaborating with renowned conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Christoph Eschenbach, and Paavo Jarvi and orchestras as the Chicago Symphony, Kirov Orchestra and Israel Philharmonic.

Seasons 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 bring him to the Cincinnati Symphony, Pacific, Omaha and Elgin symphonies following a summer stint with the Israel Philharmonic under Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos where he performed Beethoven's Emperor Concerto and the 2nd Brahms Piano Concerto nine times. In Europe he is heard in Germany on tour with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, performing Chopin's 2nd Piano Concerto, as well as with the Noeburg Chamber Orchestra. In August 2008 he is touring Brazil with Israel Symphony Orchestra performing Rachmaninoff's Second concerto. He is also scheduled to give recitals at the Festival Piano Jacobins in Toulouse, Calgary, San Francisco, Lodz, and his hometown, Tbilisi, Georgia and perform with the Polish Radio Orchestra.

The highlights of the 2004-2006 seasons were performances of Prokofiev's Third Concerto and Mozart's B flat major Concerto with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Rachmaninoff's Third Concerto with RAI Orchestra in Turin, the Dvorak Concerto with the Jerusalem Symphony and Oslo Philharmonic and the Stravinsky Concerto with the Israel Chamber Orchestra, Vancouver, Omaha, Oregon, Louisville Symphony Orchestras and a tour throughout Italy with the Georgian State Symphony.

Other noteworthy engagements have included a televised performance of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3 at the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg; performances at the Stresa Festival in Italy under the baton of Yuri Bashmet; concerts at the Newport, Tanglewood, Vancouver, Gilmore festivals; with the symphony orchestras of Louisville, Brazil, Bogota, Jerusalem and the City of Birmingham, the Georgian State Orchestra, the Kirov Orchestra, the Israel Chamber Orchestra and others. He has also participated in a United States recital tour with renowned violinist Vadim Repin. Bel Air Music is releasing live recordings of Mr. Korsantia on a double CD due in Summer 2008.

Enjoying great popularity in his country of birth, Korsantia performed at the inauguration of Georgian President Saakashvili in 2004, a year after National TV released a full-length documentary about him. In 1999, he was awarded one of the most prestigious national awards, the Medal of Honor, bestowed on him by then-President, Eduard Shevardnadze.

Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, Korsantia began his musical studies at an early age. Among his mentors are his mother, Sventlana Korsantia and Tengiz Amiredjibi, Georgia's foremost piano instructor. In 1992, he moved his family to the United States and joined the famed piano studio of fellow Georgian, Alexander Toradze, at Indiana University. Korsantia resides in Boston where he is a professor of piano on the faculty of the New England Conservatory.

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Pianist Aleksandar Serdar won several international competition awards including the Monza, Carlo Zecchi, and Vercelli in Italy, Palm Beach and Cincinnati in the USA, and the 4th prize at the Arthur Rubinstein competition in Tel Aviv.  A native of Belgrade, Serbia, Aleksandar Serdar graduated from the Art Academy of Novi Sad, and received his Master of Music degree at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore where he studied with Leon Fleisher for five years. Later he continued his studies with Sergio Perticaroli at the Academy of Santa Cecilia in Rome. Currently, Serdar is a Professor of Piano at Academy of Arts in Belgrade and at the Faculty of Arts in Nis, both in Serbia. Aleksandar Serdar performed in Italy (Conservatory hall in Milano, Palermo, Venezia, Roma, Bari, Trento, Reggio, Torino), the United States (namely at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Washington DC), France (Paris-Musee d'Orsay, Auditorium du Louvre, Theatre du Chatelet, Nice, Lion, Orleon, Marseil, Toulouse, and Festivals such as La Roque d'Antheron, Sully sur Loire, St.Riquier, Piano Jacobin, Radio France Montpelier), Switzerland (at the prestigious Zurich Tonehalle), Russia (at the Saint Petersburg festival and in Moscow), Israel, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Slovenia (in Ljubljana, Bled Festival, Celje, Gorizia), Croatia (Zagreb and Dubrovnik Summer Festival), Brazil, Peru, Portugal (Lisabon festival Folles Journeaus),Maroco, Lebanon (Bustani Festival in Beirut),Thailand, Japan, Canada, Luxembourg, Germany (Munich, Nuremberg, Hamburg-Schwlesi Holstain festival). Aleksandar Serdar played with such orchestras as the Dresden Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Bremen Philharmonic, Slovenian Philharmonic, Sophia Philharmonic, San Jose Philharmonic, Cincinnati Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Belgrade Philharmonic, Zagreb Philharmonic, Athens Philharmonic, Vancouver Island Symphony, Saint Petersburg Philharmonic, Israel Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Santa Cecilia and with conductors Marcello Viotti, Erich Kunzel, Emil Tabakov, Mendi rodan, Jean-Claude Casadesus, Milan Natchev, and Jeansuk Kahidze. Serdar's CD, released by EMI Classics, in 1988 arouse strong interest from promoters and the press. His second double disc has been released in Luxembourg in December 2004. He has recently recorded a first CD for the Serbian discographic house PGP with an all-Baroque repertoire. "Aleksandar Serdar is clearly thoughtful musician with imagination and personality"  - Gramophone, February 1999.

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Ilana Vered is synonymous with vibrant piano virtuosity since the earliest days of this compelling artist's career. "Shattering," "magnificent," "dazzling," "splendid" are words critics have used all over the world to describe her on the concert stage. Renowned for the white-hot intensity of her performances, Vered now comes before her public as a musician whose art has achieved a rare balance between passion and intellect, temperament and reflection.

Vered, who has repeatedly demonstrated sovereign musical and technical command over some forty-five concertos – from Bach to Berg – has already recorded for the London label highly lauded versions of the concertos of Mozart, Chopin, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninov. She has committed to disc the complete set of Beethoven's five piano concertos with the
Warsaw Philharmonic under the baton of Kazimierz Kord, released in late 1993 by the ProArte label. Vered has to her credit a highly-praised version of the complete Chopin Etudes, Opp. 10 and 25, a brilliant recording of the complete Moszkowski Etudes, both for Connoir Records and Connoisseur Records has release a disc entitled 25 Virtuoso Etudes on which Vered offers new readings of concert etudes by Chopin, Schumann, Paganini-Liszt and Debussy.  
 
Vered began playing the piano at the age of three, and later attended the Paris Conservatory where she studied with the eminent pianist Vlado Perlemuter. Born in Israel, she graduated from the Paris Conservatory at fifteen and completed her studies at the Juilliard School in New York City under the tutorship of Rosina Lhevinne, Nadia Reisenberg and Aube Tzerko. She made her debut as one of the first winners of the Young Concert Artists International Competition.
 
She has been heard in recital in virtually all of the music centers of the world, and has been engaged and re-engaged as soloist with the leading orchestras of our time: the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the London Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, and Philharmonia, the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Japan NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, and the Israel Philharmonic. She has performed as soloist under the batons of most of the world's finest conductors, including Stokowski, Solti, Mehta, Kempe, Kondrashin, Tilson Thomas, de Waart, Slatkin, Comissiona, Conlon, Davis, Sanderling, Cassadesus, Bertini, Weller, Sawalich, Atzmon, Leppard, rodan, Judd, Foster, Bamert, Janson and Vanska. A regular participant in summer festivals, Vered has made appearances at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York, Chicago's Ravinia Festival, Tanglewood, Caramoor, Cleveland's Blossom Festival, the Meadow-brooks Festival in Detroit and at Los Angeles' Hollywood Bowl.
 
Vered is a chamber musician of distinction and has appeared with important chamber ensembles throughout the world. She is noted particularly for her frequent performances with the Tokyo String Quartet. A highlight of this collaboration was Vered's world premiere performance with the ensemble of Ezra Laderman's Piano Quintet at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. This work, which was written for Vered and the Tokyo String Quartet, was later recorded by them for the RCA label.

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