2019 Events

 The Sixth Annual Paderewski Festival of Raleigh

October 20, 22 and November 2, 3, 9, and 10, 2019

Commencing our sixth year, we of the Paderewski Festival are well on our way to realizing our announced purpose of creating an annual cycle of concerts honoring Ignacy Jan Paderewski.  We invite you to join us for these special events, to learn and experience the extraordinary piano legacy–both as composer and as performer–of Paderewski.  He performed in this area four times and had an unusually close personal connection to Raleigh.

This year we will feature six concerts by five distinguished and accomplished pianists.  We are adding two locations at Meredith College this year: Jones Auditorium and Carswell Recital Hall.

The weight of the performances will center on the works of Chopin and Paderewski.  Paderewski normally constructed his programs from the standards of the 19th-century repertoire and would, on occasion, add one of his own compositions as a diversion or as an encore.

The website for the Festival is: www.paderewski-festival.org

The Facebook page for the Festival : www.facebook.com/paderewskifestivalraleigh


October 20, 2019, 8:00pm
Meredith College, Jones Auditorium
3800 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, North Carolina
Hubert Rutkowski, Paderewski Fantaisie Polonaise, Op. 19
With the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra


October 21, 2019, 7:30pm  
Meredith College, Carswell Recital Hall
Hubert Rutkowski, Piano Master Class

FREE, invitation only

October 22, 2019, 8:00pm  
Meredith College, Carswell Recital Hall
Hubert Rutkowski, Piano Recital

Free to the public

http://hubertrutkowski.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttKowzd3n3k

Hubert Rutkowski cultivates the pianistic tradition of Frederyk Chopin, Theodor Leschetizky, and their students Karol Mikuli, Moritz Rosenthal, Raul Koczalski, and Artur Schnabel.  He graduated from the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw with Anna Jastrzebska-Quinn and in 2005-2010 continued at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg with Evgeni Koroliov.  He has won the International Chopin Piano Competition in Hannover (2007); the “Medalla per Unanimitat” at the International Maria Canals Piano Competition in Barcelona (2006), and the prestigious Berenberg Cultural Prize in Hamburg (2013).  He has been a professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg as one of the youngest professors in Germany since 2010, and became the head of its piano department in January 2014.  He also serves as artistic director of the Chopin Festival and the Leschetizky International Piano Competition in Hamburg.  He has performed with eminent soloists and conductors, including Lilya Zilberstein, Alexei Lubimov, Lukasz Borowicz, Martin Haselböck, Jamie Phillips, and José Maria Florêncio.


November 2, 2019,  3:00pm
North Carolina Museum of History
5 East Edenton Street, Raleigh, North Carolina
Tomasz Ritter

https://culture.pl/en/artist/tomasz-ritter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wLEJZGRQm0

At age of 24, Tomasz Ritter has already won considerable fame, most recently in September 2018 as the winner of the first International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments in Warsaw. Beginning his studies in his native Lublin, he moved at age 13 to Warsaw to a larger stage.  He then continued his studies at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory.  He has performed throughout Europe, in Russia and Japan.


November 3, 2019, 3:00pm
North Carolina Museum of History
5 East Edenton Street, Raleigh, North Carolina
Andrew J. Yang

https://www.andrewyangpiano.com/biography

https://www.facebook.com/andrewyangpiano/videos/1631024206971980/

Deemed by the San Francisco Examiner as a “prodigy, running the emotional gamut from brooding introspection to manic exuberance,“ American pianist, Andrew Yang, has recently embarked on an active career across the United States, Europe and Canada.  A prize winner at numerous competitions, most recently the Serge and Olga Koussevitsky, International Euregio Piano Award, International Metropolitan, International Heidi Herman’s, and Los Angeles International Liszt Piano Competition, Yang has also been awarded a White Rose Medal of Honor for musical excellence by the President of Finland, Saudi Niinisto.


November 9, 2019 at 3:00pm
Smedes Parlor, Saint Mary’s School
900 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, North Carolina
Gloria Campaner

https://www.gloriacampaner.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff9e_xdP6gg

Born in Venice, Gloria Campaner could easily win her wings through life on the wings of grace and beauty.  She has augmented these attributes with an extraordinary command of the piano from the time of Bach through contemporary compositions. With more than twenty international prizes throughout Europe and America, she continues to win acclaim throughout the world and in 2019 has been named Artistic Director of Festivals in Messina and in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.


November 10, 2019, 3:00pm
Smedes Parlor, Saint Mary’s School
900 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, North Carolina
Jakub Kuszlik

https://www.hhipc.org/jakub-kuszlik-2/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRlRDp8iJ7E

Jakub Kuszlik appeared on the Paderewski Festival in Raleigh in 2018, where he gained an extraordinary success.  He performed in multiple venues in New York City including Lincoln Center and the Consulate General of his native Poland to overflow crowds and great acclaim.   He is the recipient of numerous international and national competitions. This year, at age 22, he has won second place in the Hilton Head International Piano Competition (March) and third place in the Top of the World Competition in Tromso, Norway (June).  He has performed in Poland, Germany, Norway, Iceland, Japan, Vietnam, and the United States.