Concert by Oliver Kern and Oxana Yablonskaya

OXANA YABLONSKAYA

Oxana Yablonskaya is an American-Israeli pianist who has    an active international performing career since the early 1960s. Born in Moscow,Yablonskaya was a pupil of    Anaida Sumbatyan at the    Moscow Central School for the Gifted where she studied from the ages of six through sixteen. She then pursued further studies at the Moscow Conservatory with legendary    Alexander Goldenweiser and became a first student of    Dmitry Bashkirov, whom Goldenweiser just invited to teach as his Assistant. She was a student of Tatiana Nikolayeva in her Doctorate program. After graduating from the conservatory in 1965, she joined the school's piano faculty. She went on to win top prizes in the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition in 1963, Rio de Janeiro Piano Competition in 1965 and the Vienna Beethoven Competition in 1969.
Yablonskaya was invited to perform as soloist and    with orchestras    in concert halls in the West during the 1960s and 1970s, but was never allowed to accept invitations. She performed throughout the USSR and made numerous recordings on the Melodya label. She was named a "Soloist of the Moscow Philharmonic" and was    highly active as a soloist with the Bolshoi Orchestra.
 
Frustrated by the    limitations of her artistic freedom ,she emigrated to the United States in 1977, but only after two years of waiting as “ Refusnik” ,stripped of her job at the Moscow Conservatory and concert career. 75 prominent musicians, actors, composers, senators,including Leonard Bernstein, Kathryn    Hepburn, Shelly Winters, Henry Miller, Isaak Bashevis-Singer ( Nobel Prize Winner) and even President Carter appealed to the Soviet government to let her leave .

 Described by The New York Times as an "internationally known virtuoso" and "one of the country's most distinguished musical residents", Yablonskaya has toured in concerts and recitals throughout the world and has made numerous recordings. She taught as a member of the piano faculty at the Juilliard School for more than 25 years, until 2009.

 Yablonskaya is the Winner of Grand Prix du Disque from the Liszt Society in Budapest for her recording of music by Schubert-Liszt and Liszt. Oxana Yablonskaya is an Honorary Academician of the International Academy of the Arts at the United Nations, International Academy of the Arts in San Francisco and Independent Academy of Liberal Arts at the Russian Academy of Sciences. She is recipient of the Einstein Medal for Outstanding Achievements in the Arts.
Besides active concert and teaching career , Ma. Yablonskaya made editions for International Music Co. in New York.

In 2016 Prof. Yablonskaya came to Israel, where she now lives and teaches at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and continues to dazzle audiences throughout Israel and abroad. 

Oliver Kern, born in 1970, graduated with a first-class degree in piano, orchestral and choral conducting from the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart, under the guidance of Wan Ing Ong. He then went on to specialize in piano with Rudolf Buchbinder and Karl-Heinz Kämmerling, at the Musik-Akademie in Basel and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.  
Throughout his career, he has won a considerable number of awards in international piano competitions. He has attracted attention and positive reviews from critics by winning two prestigious competitions: the “ARD” competition in Munich, in 1999, and the “Beethoven” competition in Vienna, in 2001, having been the first German pianist to have won this award. He is much appreciated for his performance of Beethoven’s and Brahms’ music – critics have recognized his noteworthy possession of technical virtuosity that is not an end in itself, but rather oriented toward a thorough research into timbre and expression. His profound interpretation has led him to the realization of seldom undertaken cultural projects such as the performance of Brahms’ complete works for piano solo on different continents: “With great intensity and poetry Oliver Kern is modeling the Brahms cycle.” (Braunschweiger Zeitung).  
Right now he is finishing the performance of all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas in Sicily before playing it again in Germany in spring 2025.  

He has performed in important festivals and in famous halls throughout America, Asia, and Europe, and has been acclaimed by audiences at esteemed concert venues such as: Musikverein and Konzerthaus Wien, Schauspielhaus Berlin, Musikhalle Hamburg, Herkulessaal Munich, Salle Gaveau Paris, Teatro alla Scala Milan, Auditorium St. Cecilia Rome, Century Hall Beijing, Saitama Arts Centre Tokyo, Seoul Arts Center. He has played with famous orchestras including the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, the Seoul Symphony Orchestra, the China National Symphony Orchestra, and most of the German Radio Symphony Orchestras. In 2024 he has been invited to perform several times with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. He has recorded for the German, Austrian, French, Italian, Korean, and Japanese radio and television.  

After having taught at Hanyang University Seoul, Oliver Kern taught at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Hamburg as professor of piano, before taking his current position as professor of piano at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, Frankfurt where he is head of the piano faculty.