Internationally-acclaimed pianist Kevin Kenner will give a recital at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 14, in the Snow Fine Arts Recital Hall on the UCA campus. The concert is free and open to the public.
Kenner?s visit is a part of UCA?s Artists in Residence program coordinated by the College of Fine Arts and Communication and sponsored by the Department of Writing and Speech. While on campus, he will be conducting a master class with UCA music students.At the age of 17, the American pianist participated in the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw and was awarded the 10th prize and a special prize from the jury for his promising talent. Ten years later, in 1990 he returned to Warsaw to win the top prize, the People’s Prize and the Polonaise Prize. Earlier that year, he won the bronze medal at the International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow, together with a special prize for his interpretation of Russian music. Other awards include the International Terence Judd Award (London, 1990), the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (Fort Worth, 1989) and the Gina Bachauer International Competition (Salt Lake City, 1988).
Kenner has since performed as soloist with world-class orchestras including such as the BBC Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic and the NHK Symphony of Japan and has worked with many renowned conductors, including the late Sir Charles Groves, Hans Vonk and Andrew Davis.
He has performed chamber music with the Tokyo String Quartet, the Endellion String Quartet and the Vogler String Quartet among many others. Along with his concert appearances, he has been giving master classes for the last 6 years at the International Piano Festival in Krynica in Poland as well as in major centers in Japan and America. He has recorded the Chopin Preludes for Polygram and more recently the Four Chopin Scherzos. He also continues to record frequently for the BBC and Polish Radio. Kevin Kenner has made appearances all over the world to commemorate the 150th Anniversary of Chopin?s death, including a return to London?s Wigmore Hall, the Hotel de Ville in Paris, the summer home of George Sand at Nohant, Chopin’s birthplace in Zelazowa Wola, and other major cities such as Oslo, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Warsaw, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
He is currently a professor at the Royal College of Music in London and has recently recorded the Chopin concerti with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra.
For more information, contact Neil Rutman at (501) 450-5767 or email neilr@uca.edu
