Acclaimed Russian pianist Kirill Gliadkovsky will perform a free concert, hosted by the East Central University Department of Music, on Wednesday, March 13, at 7:30 p.m. at the Ada Arts and Heritage Center.
Gliadkovsky’s performances have been met with great enthusiasm by both audiences and music critics in Russia, Europe and North America. His popularity has been fast-growing as well. He has been a featured artist in numerous live television and radio broadcasts and programs on such networks as NPR, CBS, PBS, CBC, WQXR, KBYU, KPAC and Russian State TV. He has recorded six CSs for Alexei Records and for CMK Classics labels.
Joseph Woodard, a critic for the Los Angeles Times, wrote. “…the intensity and a nicely honed musicality left the audience stunned…enthralling…all in all, a gripping and masterful performance.” Dany Margolies at the Malibu Times describes his playing: “wondrous range…impassioned depth…enormous physical and emotional power…a complete artist”. “Fine dramatic senese…appealing range of emotional effects and pianistic devices…wonderful,” wrote the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Since making his first public appearance at age 6, Gliadkovsky has toured extensively on three continents, performing piano and organ recitals and as a soloist with orchestras in various cities in Russia, including Moscow’s prestigious Bolshoi, Maliy and Rachmaninioff Halls, St. Petersburg Philharmonic’s Glinka Hall, as well as in Italy, U.K., Poland, Mongolia, Canada, Japan and throughout the United States.
Gliadkovsky was born in Moscow and has studied music since the age of 5. He attended the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow where his teachers included renowned musicians Lev Vlasenko, Mikhail Pletniev (piano) and Leonid Royzman (organ). Gliadkovsky also earned both his master’s and doctor of musical arts degrees as the University of Southern California with Professors Daniel Pollack (piano), Cherry Rhodes (organ) and William Schaefer (conducting).
He also coached with Ann Schein, Herbert Stessin, Stephen Kovacevich and Lev Naumov. Gliadkovsky took numerous prizes at international piano competitions in Europe and the United States.
Gliadkovsky is an orchestra and choir conductor and performs on the harpsichord as well. He is part of a duo and trio piano team with his wife and a concert pianist Anna Gliadkovskaya and their 14-year-old daughter Anastasia. They have toured together in many states and internationally, to a critical acclaim. Gliadkovsky has been on piano faculties at USC, Pepperdine University and Santa Monica College. He has been the music director and organist at Westwood Hills Christian Church in Los Angeles for 10 years.
Additionally, Gliadkovsky has been a sought-after adjudicator at piano competitions across the nation and a guest artist-teacher in lectures and master classes in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Dallas as well as universities in Indiana, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado and Oregon.
His students have won prizes in numerous piano contests and have been accepted (often with full scholarships) at schools such as Manhattan School of Music, Northwestern University, Peabody and San Francisco Conservatories, USC, UCLA, UC Berkley, University of North Texas and others.
Gliadkovsky combines his busy concert schedule with teaching. His recent engagements include tours in the Midwest and on the East Coast, solo and concerto appearances in Costa Rica, California, Utah, Idaho, New Mexico, and Colorado, as well as collaborative performances in Oregon and California. Prior to coming to Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, Calif., where he serves as the director of keyboard studies, he had been the head of piano area at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah. His wife, Anna, has also been on the piano faculty at Southern Utah. She currently teaches as Saddleback and Irvine Valley Colleges.