Meet the judges for the 2020 Russian Chamber Music Competition!
Yerin Kim
Praised by the International Piano Magazine as “pianist of beautiful finesse and golden tone”, pianist Yerin Kim is a recitalist, chamber musician, and educator. She has given concerts in various festivals and recitals in major venues internationally, including The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Carnegie Hall in New York, Place Flagey in Brussels and Rolston Hall at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada.
Her solo debut album “First and Last Words”, works by Robert Schumann and Alfred Schnittke, was released by the Sheva Collection Label in Spring in 2019. Phoenix Classical, one of the foremost promoters of Classical recordings across the world, remarked on the album as “powerful and engaging, very poetic and expressive with some truly original interpretive insights, all performed with a great technique”. The album has garnered critical acclaim from major classical music magazines, including the International Piano Magazine, Fanfare Magazine, and The Wholenote Magazine. Partnering with her husband, Brendan Shea, performances have been broadcasted on Klara Continuo in Belgium, PBC in Seoul, WUFT Classic in the USA. Their debut performance in Seoul, South Korea was recorded live and published by Ark Studio. Their latest project, “The Sound and the Fury”, will be released in fall 2020 by Blue Griffin records.
As a regular lecturer and guest artist, Kim performs and gives talks on promoting awareness of the power of music in the community that it serves. She has been invited to give lectures for prominent educators and students at Indiana University Bloomington, the Nantucket Project, MTNA South Bend Music Teachers Association, and the Universal Arts Institute, S. Korea. Committed to bringing inspiring concert programs and classical music experience to a broader audience, she founded and directs Sensory Friendly Music and Autism Concert Series, serving music to individuals with autism in New York, St.Louis, and South Bend. She is also Co-artistic Director with violinist Brendan Shea of Chamber Music in the Bend, programming high quality chamber music education and performing chamber music concerts for the community.
Kim is equally passionate in teaching and has been teaching a diverse group of students from many parts of the world. She recently joined the faculty at Central Washington University as the Visiting Assistant Professor of Piano. Prior to joining Central Washington University, she taught at the University of Notre Dame as Adjunct Assistant Teaching Professor, and at Chugye University for the Arts Conservatory in South Korea as Visiting Professor of Piano. She also enjoys pre-college teaching and has taught talented young students from pre-college programs at Indiana University Bloomington and State University of New York Stony Brook.
Kim holds a Double Degree in Piano Performance and Psychology from Oberlin conservatory and college, a Master of Music from Indiana University Bloomington, and Doctor of Musical Arts from State University of New York, Stony Brook. Her mentors and teachers include Hans Boepple, Seunghae Choi, Haewon Song, Arnaldo Cohen, Jean-Louis Haguenauer, and Gilbert Kalish
Solomia Soroka
Violinist Solomia Soroka, born in L’viv, Ukraine, made her solo debut at age 10, playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the L’viv Philharmonic Orchestra. Her playing combines the powerful background of the Ukrainian system with a passionate exploration of lesser played music, especially American and Ukrainian.
She has appeared as soloist and as chamber musician at concerts and festivals in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France, Italy, Czech Republic, Ukraine, USA, Canada, China, Korea, and Taiwan. She is praised for being “a truly wonderful musician” (The Press, Christchurch, New Zealand), her “technical mastery…ferocity, light and mystic lyricism” (Daily Freeman, New York), and as one who “plays with great warmth and authority” (BBC Music Magazine). She has performed with orchestras in Ukraine, Australia, and the United States.
Ms. Soroka has performed premieres of a number of important contemporary Ukrainian compositions for violin, including works by Borys Lyatoshynsky, Myroslav Skoryk and Yevhen Stankovych.
Since her U.S. debut in 1997, she has performed throughout the United States. Her recitals in Washington DC were part of the Smithsonian Institute performing arts series and she received the following review in the Washington Post:
“Soroka is a superbly equipped violinist, at ease with the technical challenges
of Sarasate or of Jeno Hubay’s Czardas No. 2, but even more impressive in the gentler moments…. Her tone is warm and mellow on the low strings, brilliant on the high strings, perfectly controlled and expressively used.”
Solomia Soroka has toured and recorded extensively with her husband, the pianist Arthur Greene. Their Naxos recording of Four Violin Sonatas by William Bolcom was selected as Recording of the Month with the highest ranking for both artistry and sound quality by Classics Today, and received reviews in various distinguished journals:
“Another virtuoso piece…confidently delivered by this brilliant duo” (Gramophone)
Their recording of the violin sonatas of Nikolai Roslavets, also for Naxos, has received international attention. “Soroka seemed utterly confident, catching a haunting, languid quality within Roslavets’s elusive harmonic idiom……” (The Strad)
In the past eight years Soroka has been recording for Toccata Records, based in London, where she made six premier recordings, of music by American composer Arthur Hartmann, Ukrainian Myroslav Skoryk, Mykola Lysenko, and Yevhen Stankovych, and Holocaust composers Leone Sinigaglia and Bernhard Sekles.
Ms. Soroka’s current passion is for unknown American music from the late 19th century to the beginning of the 20th. She has gathered a substantial collection of rare scores of American sonatas from that period by lesser-known American composers, and is in a process of recording and releasing them online. She will tour US universities with lecture-recitals introducing this unknown music to American students, academia and a general audience.
Solomia Soroka is currently a violin professor at Goshen College, Indiana, and is on the faculty of Music Fest in Perugia, Italy. Ms. Soroka has taught at the Castleman Quartet Program, Pilsen Summer Academy, and Schlern Music Festival. She is active giving masterclasses in her native Ukraine, USA, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Israel, Czech Republic, and Italy.
She studied with Hersh Heifetz, Bohodar Kotorovych, Liudmyla Zvirko and Charles Castleman. Website information:www.solomiasoroka.com
Michel Fournier
As a student of French pianist Yvonne Hubert in Montreal, Canadian pianist Michel Fournier completed a Master’s degree before continuing his studies in France and Austria. He also studied under legendary pianist Menahem Pressler at University of Indiana. He earned a Doctorate in Music from Université de Montréal with Marc Durand.
Praised both as a soloist and a chamber player, Michel Fournier has performed with a number of orchestras and is widely appreciated for the many recitals he has given in Canada, Europe, and the United States. His repertoire covers a broad spectrum of piano music from different eras and styles. He has a special fondness for French music and has earned critical acclaim for the originality of his interpretation and his refined sound: “…perfect knowledge of the expressive resources of the piano, a tour de force that ranks him among the masters of impressionist music.” (Adveratul de Cluj – Romania)
Dr. Michel Fournier toured extensively with world class musicians and ensembles (Quartango, Les Chambristes de Montreal, violin and piano duo with Hungarian-born violinist Gyorgy Terebesi); he has several Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) recordings, many albums and movie soundtracks to his credit (The colors of my father: portrait of Sam Borenstein, André Mathieu musicien). His numerous CD’s have won public and critical acclaim all over Canada.
Highly appreciated as an educator, Michel Fournier has provided guidance to thousands of musicians, teaching masterclasses, coaching and adjudicating national and international competitions for young musicians across North America, Europe, and Asia. As a teacher, many of his students are award-winners in national and international competitions (Tureck International Bach Competition, American Protégé, Thousand Islands International Chopin Competition, Canadian Music Competition, National Music Festival in Canada and others).
His music studio in Montreal welcomes students from around the world for artist residency. In the last few years, he was to join the faculty of Camp Musical des Laurentides in Quebec.
Michel is also co-owner, artistic director and advisor for the classical music division of St-André Management Inc., which is responsible for developing and promoting the talent of promising young musicians.
Michel is also passionate about photography, and likes to share his love of nature and life through the pictures he takes during his many travels around the world.