UA’s School of Music Welcomes Celebrity Series Pianist Olga Kern

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The University of Alabama’s School of Music welcomes celebrated pianist Olga Kern to perform a concert as part of the 2003-04 Celebrity Series on Tuesday, Nov. 18 at 7:30 p.m. in the Concert Hall of the Moody Music Building. The concert is sponsored by the Gloria Narramore Moody Foundation.

Kern has been captivating fans and critics alike with her passionately confident musicianship and vivid stage presence for years. She has performed in many of the world’s most important venues, including the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Symphony Hall in Osaka, La Scala in Milan and the Salle Cortot in Paris.

A Russian native, Kern was born into a family of musicians (her great-great-grandmother was a friend of Tchaikovsky and her great-grandmother sang with Rachmaninoff) and began studying piano at age 5. She won the first Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition when she was 17, is a laureate of 11 international competitions and has toured throughout her native Russia, Europe, and the United States, as well as in Japan, South Africa and South Korea.

In June of 2001 Kern was awarded the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Gold Medal at the 11th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition – the first woman to have achieved this distinction in more than 30 years. She was featured in “Playing on the Edge,” the Peabody Award-winning documentary about the 11th Van Cliburn Competition, which has aired on PBS stations across the United States.

Her final round Cliburn Competition performances with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and Maestro James Conlon are showcased in the PBS series “Concerto.” Kern recently recorded the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Christopher Seaman, which was just released by harmonia mundi usa.

About the Gloria Narramore Moody Foundation: The Moody Foundation was founded in 1990 by Gloria Moody and her husband, the late Tuscaloosa businessman Frank McCorkle Moody, to support the arts and music. In addition to bringing world-class performers to Alabama, the Moody Foundation has endowed scholarships at UA and has supported arts organizations elsewhere in the United States.

This is the 15th year the Moody Foundation has brought an internationally acclaimed talent to Alabama. Previous Moody Foundation sponsored artists have included bass Samuel Ramey, New York Metropolitan Opera soprano Benita Valente, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Emanuel Ax in a joint recital, violinists Itzhak Perlman, Gil Shaham and Leila Josefowicz and flutist Ransom Wilson.

Single ticket prices are $22 and $15 for general audiences and $7 for students with valid IDs. For ticket information or an immediate credit card purchase call the School of Music Box Office at 205/348-7111.

The School of Music is a department of the College of Arts and Sciences, UA’s largest division and the largest public liberal arts college in the state, with approximately 5,500 undergraduates and 1,000 graduate students. The College has received national recognition for academic excellence, and the College’s students have been selected for many of the nation’s top academic honors, including 13 Rhodes Scholarships, 14 Goldwater Scholarships, seven Truman Scholarships, and 15 memberships on USA Today’s Academic All-American teams.