Gilmore Young Artists get tuneful welcome
The Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival has named Natasha Paremski and Yuja Wang recipients of the 2006 Gilmore Young Artist Awards.
Their awards were announced Saturday night at a 2006 Gilmore Festival preview party at which Wang was one of the performers.
``From the time that I was young, my teacher told me you should always be prepared for anything, that you never know who may be in the audience,'' Wang said at the preview. The Gilmore examines candidates for the award without the candidates' knowledge.
The Gilmore Young Artist Award is given every two years and recognizes the achievements of pianists age 21 and younger in the United States. Paremski and Wang will receive $15,000 each over the next two years to further their careers and education. They also are awarded appearances at the Gilmore Festival and a new piano work commissioned for each of them.
``Both of them, each in their own way, are young artists who are quite sophisticated, not only in their playing but in their programming and their musical tastes,'' said Daniel R. Gustin, director of the Gilmore. ``It was one of the things that impressed us in looking at them and all the other candidates that were considered.''
Paremski, 18, was born in Moscow and began studying piano when she was 4. She moved to the United States in 1995 to study at the San Francisco Conservatory.
She is on a full scholarship at the Mannes College of Music in New York City, where she studies with Pavlina Dokovska.
Paremski won top prizes in the 2002 Bronislaw Kaper Awards sponsored by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Young Artists in Carnegie Hall 2000 International Piano Festival, and the Pinault Musical Society 1999 International Piano Competition in New York.
``The most important thing about the Gilmore award is that you're being recognized by a very prestigious organization and they believe in my artistry enough to support me like this,'' Paremski said by phone.
Paremski wowed audiences when she performed in the Gilmore Rising Stars recital series in May.
``An overflow audience sat in unearthly silence as she drew on rock-solid technique and mature musical intelligence to methodically and superbly perform extremely demanding works from the classical era through our own,'' wrote C.J. Gianakaris in a Kalamazoo Gazette review published May 23.
Wang, also 18, is a student at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she studies with Gary Graffman. She was born in Beijing, China, and began playing piano when she was 6 years old.
She took the Special Jury Award in 2001 at the First Japan Sendai International Music Competition and in 2002 she was a featured performer on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's ``Up and Coming'' Series.
Wang has performed with the Young Musician's Forum in New York, the Seattle Chamber Music Society and the Tonhalle Orchestra.
Paremski and Wang will make their official debuts as Gilmore Young Artists during the 2006 Gilmore Festival.