Murdock Piano Series @ Beall Concert Hall, U of O
Jon Nakamatsu
Valery Kuleshov
Antonio Pompa-Baldi
Solo recital: November 14, 2024, 7:30PM, Beall Hall
Masterclass and Q&A: November 13, 2PM, Beall Hall
Now in his third decade of touring worldwide, American pianist Jon Nakamatsu continues to draw critical and public acclaim for his intensity, elegance and electrifying solo, concerto and chamber music performances. Catapulted to internation
Solo recital: November 14, 2024, 7:30PM, Beall Hall
Masterclass and Q&A: November 13, 2PM, Beall Hall
Now in his third decade of touring worldwide, American pianist Jon Nakamatsu continues to draw critical and public acclaim for his intensity, elegance and electrifying solo, concerto and chamber music performances. Catapulted to international attention in 1997 as the Gold Medalist of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition—the only American to achieve this distinction since 1981—Mr. Nakamatsu subsequently developed a multi-faceted career that encompasses recording, education, arts administration and public speaking in addition to his vast concert schedule.
This season, Mr. Nakamatsu returns to live performances throughout the United States and in Europe. Between 2020 and the spring of 2021, he was engaged in a myriad of online events including recording, masterclasses and virtual interviews and lectures for organizations such as the Chautauqua Institution Piano Festival, Colorado College Summer Music Festival, Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute, the Van Cliburn Foundation and the Chopin Foundation of the United States. In collaboration with clarinetist Jon Manasse, Mr. Nakamatsu also produced and curated an online series of interviews and historical performances taken from the archives of the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, where he and Mr. Manasse have served as Artistic Directors since 2007.
Mr. Nakamatsu has been guest soloist with over 150 orchestras worldwide, including those of Baltimore, Berlin, Boston, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Florence, Los Angeles, Milan, San Francisco, Seattle, Tokyo and Vancouver. He has worked with such esteemed conductors as Marin Alsop, Sergiu Comissiona, James Conlon, Philippe Entremont, Hans Graf, Marek Janowski, Raymond Leppard, Gerard Schwarz, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Michael Tilson Thomas and Osmo Vänskä.
As a recitalist, Mr. Nakamatsu has appeared in New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Washington DC’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Musée d’Orsay and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and in major centers such as Boston, Chicago, Houston, London, Milan, Munich, Prague, Singapore, Warsaw and Zurich. In Beijing he has been heard at the Theater of the Forbidden City, the Great Hall of the People, China Conservatory, and the National Centre for the Performing Arts. His numerous summer engagements included appearances at the Aspen, Tanglewood, Ravinia, Caramoor, Vail, Wolftrap, Colorado, Brevard, Britt, Colorado College, Evian, Interlochen, Klavierfestival Ruhr, Santa Fe and Sun Valley festivals. In 2022 he participated in an extended residency at the Bowdoin Festival in Maine and returned to the Chautauqua Institution in New York where he has served as Artist in Residence since the summer of 2018.
With clarinetist Jon Manasse, Mr. Nakamatsu tours as a member of the Manasse/Nakamatsu Duo. Following its Boston debut in 2004, the Duo released its first CD for harmonia mundi usa (Brahms Sonatas for Clarinet and Piano) which received the highest praise from The New York Times Classical Music Editor James Oestreich, who named it among the “Best of the Year” for 2008. A frequent chamber musician, Mr. Nakamatsu has collaborated repeatedly with ensembles such as the Emerson, Escher, Jupiter, Miró, Modigliani, Prazak, St. Lawrence, Tokyo and Ying string quartets, the Imani Winds and the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet with whom he made multiple tours beginning in 2000.
Mr. Nakamatsu’s 13 CDs recorded for harmonia mundi usa have garnered extraordinary critical praise. An all-Gershwin recording with Jeff Tyzik and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra featuring Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F remained in the top echelons of Billboard’s classical charts for over six months. Other acclaimed discs include the recording premiere of Lukas Foss’ first Piano Concerto with Carl St. Clair and the Pacific Symphony, the Brahms Piano Quintet with the Tokyo String Quartet in the quartet’s final recording as an ensemble, and a solo recording including Robert Schumann’s Second Piano Sonata whose YouTube posting has garnered over 800K hits.
Mr. Nakamatsu has been profiled extensively in print, radio, television and online. He has appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, in Readers Digest magazine, and on Live from Here! with Chris Thile. In 1999, Mr. Nakamatsu performed at the White House at the special invitation of President and Mrs. Clinton. He has also performed for the United States Mayor’s Convention in San Francisco, and in 2001 was the featured guest artist during the opening and dedication of the Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During World War II in Washington DC.
A former high school teacher of German with no formal conservatory training, Mr. Nakamatsu studied privately with Marina Derryberry for over 20 years beginning at the age of six; worked with Karl Ulrich Schnabel since the age of 9; and trained for 10 years in composition, theory and orchestration with Dr. Leonard Stein of the University of Southern California’s Schoenberg Institute. Mr. Nakamatsu holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford University in German Studies and secondary education. In 2015, he joined the piano faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and lives in the Bay Area with his wife Kathy and young son Gavin.
Antonio Pompa-Baldi
Valery Kuleshov
Antonio Pompa-Baldi
March 15, 2025, 7:30PM, Beall Hall
Born and raised in Foggia, Italy, Antonio Pompa-Baldi won the Cleveland International Piano Competition in 1999 and embarked on a multifaceted career that continues to extend across five continents.
A top prize winner at the 1998 Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition of Paris, France, Antonio Pompa-
March 15, 2025, 7:30PM, Beall Hall
Born and raised in Foggia, Italy, Antonio Pompa-Baldi won the Cleveland International Piano Competition in 1999 and embarked on a multifaceted career that continues to extend across five continents.
A top prize winner at the 1998 Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition of Paris, France, Antonio Pompa-Baldi also won a silver medal at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
With a concerto repertoire including more than 60 works, Mr. Pompa-Baldi regularly performs cycles of all the Rachmaninoff Piano Concertos, the five Beethoven Piano Concertos, both Brahms Concertos and many other established masterpieces of the piano literature, while also championing neglected or lesser-known repertoire, with leading orchestras around the world.
Mr. Pompa-Baldi appears at major concert venues including New York’s Carnegie Hall, Cleveland’s Severance Hall, Milan’s Sala Verdi, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Shanghai’s Grand Theatre, and Paris’ Salle Pleyel, to name a few. He has collaborated with conductors including Hans Graf, Krzysztof Urbánski, James Conlon, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Theodore Kuchar, Benjamin Zander, Louis Lane, and Keith Lockhart. He has performed with ensembles and colleagues such as Takacs String Quartet, trumpeter Alison Balsom, cellist Sharon Robinson, violinists Ivan Zenaty and Ilya Kaler, and principals of the Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Juilliard Quartet.
Among the many stops on his tours, he performed in Vienna (Austria), London (UK), Paris (France), New York (USA), Auckland (New Zealand), Jerusalem (Israel), Kiev (Ukraine), Cape Town (South Africa), Poland, Germany, Mexico, Canada, Spain, and many other places around the globe.
In China alone, Pompa-Baldi has toured extensively in the most prestigious venues of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and all the other major cities, and is a regular returning guest at the Lang Lang piano festivals of Shenzhen and Hangzhou.
Mr. Pompa-Baldi has recorded 35 CDs to date, for various labels including Centaur Records, Harmonia Mundi, Steinway, TwoPianists, Azica, and Brilliant Classics. Among them, the complete piano and chamber music works of Grieg, the Josef Rheinberger Piano Sonatas, the complete Hummel Piano Sonatas, and CDs dedicated to Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, Respighi, and Rachmaninoff.
For the Steinway label, Pompa-Baldi recorded songs by Francis Poulenc and Edith Piaf, arranged for solo piano, as well as a CD titled “Napoli”, which features new piano versions of famous Neapolitan songs, elaborated by Roberto Piana.
Among his latest releases are his transcription for solo piano of the Respighi B minor Violin Sonata, and Suites by Debussy, Luca Moscardi and Barber for piano duo. Recorded with his wife, pianist Emanuela Friscioni, this latest album was published with the title “Suite Nothings” by the Steinway label.
Antonio Pompa-Baldi is a Steinway Artist. He is also a Steinway Recording Artist, as well as one of the most prominently featured artists in the Spirio recording catalogue. He is often invited to judge international piano competitions such as the Cleveland, Hilton Head, E-Competition (Minneapolis), BNDES Rio de Janeiro, Chopin USA (Miami) and Edward Grieg (Bergen), among many others. He serves as president of the jury and artistic advisor for the San Jose International Piano Competition since 2005.
Pompa-Baldi is on the Piano Faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he is also Head of the Piano Department. His students have been prizewinners in important competitions such as Marguerite Long, Hilton Head, Isang Yun, and Gina Bachauer. He is regularly invited to teach masterclasses in countless Universities, Music Schools, and Festivals in the US and all over the world, and is honorary professor at various institutions including the Beijing China Conservatory, and the Shenyang Conservatory of Music.
Pompa-Baldi is Founder and Artistic Director of Todi International Music Masters. This summer festival takes place every August in the beautiful Italian town of Todi. It features 15 concerts in 15 evenings, with internationally renown guest artists as faculty members, and students from all over the world.
Valery Kuleshov
Valery Kuleshov
Valery Kuleshov
May 28, 2025, 7:30PM
Valery Kuleshov serves as an Artist in Residence for the College of Fine Arts and Design in the School of Music. Kuleshov, a pianist, is an Honored Artist of the Russian Federation whose awards include a Gold Medal at the Busoni International Piano Competition (1987), a Silver Medal at the Van Cliburn International Pia
May 28, 2025, 7:30PM
Valery Kuleshov serves as an Artist in Residence for the College of Fine Arts and Design in the School of Music. Kuleshov, a pianist, is an Honored Artist of the Russian Federation whose awards include a Gold Medal at the Busoni International Piano Competition (1987), a Silver Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (1993) and the first prize at the Pro Piano Competition (1998).
Kuleshov regularly tours the world, performing in some of the world's best concert halls including New York's Carnegie Hall, the Milan Conservatory in Italy and the Great Halls of the Moscow Conservatory and St. Petersburg Philharmonic.
Kuleshov was born in Chelyabinsk, Russia, near what is now Kazakhstan. He began playing by ear at age five. Teachers soon noticed his talent, and by age seven he had left home to enter the prestigious Central Music School at the Moscow Conservatory. At age nine, he made his concert debut in the Conservatory's Great Hall.
Kuleshov briefly studied with piano legend Vladimir Horowitz. In 2001, he released "Homage to Vladimir Horowitz," a CD of Kuleshov's transcriptions of his mentor's works. He also has released several other CDs.
Kuleshov performs concerts each year at the University of Central Oklahoma. Students in the UCO Symphony Orchestra often get the opportunity to accompany him during his performances, and, at times, Kuleshov gives solo performances.