Maria Ioudenitch
Violin
American-Russian violinist Maria Ioudenitch captured the attention of music lovers worldwide in 2021 when she received first prizes in three international violin competitions – the Ysaÿe, Tibor Varga and Joseph Joachim – as well as numerous special prizes at these competitions, including Joachim’s Chamber Music Award, the prize for Best Interpretation of a Commissioned Work and the Henle Urtext Prize. In 2023, she won the Opus Klassik Award in the category “Chamber Music Recording of the Year” for her debut album, Songbird, on Warner Classics.
Recognized for her innovative programmes, her first album on Warner with pianist Kenny Broberg, spans from Franz Schubert and Fanny Mendelssohn to Nikolai Medtner and Nadia Boulanger. In upcoming concerts, she performs concertos by Mendelssohn, Sibelius, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and Barber, as well as Vivaldi’s “Il Grosso Mogul”, while this season’s recital programmes include works by Lera Auerbach and Germaine Tailleferre, alongside standard violin repertoire.
Highlights of the 24/25 season include debuts with Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich as part of the Orpheum Foundation’s concert series, with Trondheim Symfoniorkester, with Sofia Philharmonic and with Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, with whom she also goes on tour. She is also invited by Heidelberger Frühling, Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, Philharmonisches Orchester Heidelberg and Philharmonia Frankfurt. Maria will return to Dresden Philharmonic for the New Year’s concert, after a very successful tour together in the UK in 2024. Upcoming debut appearances in the USA are with the Cincinnati and Detroit Symphony Orchestras while she also returns to her hometown Kansas City Symphony.
Named „Great Talent“ by the Konzerthaus Wien, a programme that supports young artists on their way to the top of the world, she gives various recitals at the Wiener Konzerthaus. As an active chamber musician, she participates in chamber music tours with Ravinia Steans Music Institute and Marlboro Music Festival.
Maria Ioudenitch has made her debuts with hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (at Berlin’s Philharmonie), MDR-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker and Münchner Symphoniker. She works with conductors such as Andrey Boreyko, Donald Runnicles, Alpesh Chauhan, Marta Gardolińska, Holly Hyun Choe, Jonathan Bloxham, Yi-Chen Lin, Ryan Bancroft, Kevin John Edusei, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Andrew Manze, Jan Willem de Vriend, Robin Ticciati and Ruth Reinhardt.
Maria grew up in Kansas City and began playing violin with Gregory Sandomirsky at the age of three. She continued her studies with Ben Sayevich at the International Center for Music in Kansas City and Pamela Frank and Shmuel Ashkenasi at the Curtis Institute of Music and completed her master’s degree and Artist Diploma at the New England Conservatory, where she studied with Miriam Fried. In 2021-2023, she was mentored by Sonia Simmenauer as part of her new initiative, zukunfts.music. Currently, she is in the Professional Studies program at the Kronberg Academy, working with Christian Tetzlaff.
Stanislav Ioudenitch
Piano
Known for a ravishing technique and his compelling musical conviction, pianist Stanislav Ioudenitch is part of the elite group of Cliburn Gold Medal winners, having taken home the Gold Medal at the 11th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. His profoundly warm and intelligent performances have won him prizes at the Feruccio Busoni, William Kapell, Maria Callas, and New Orleans competitions, among others.
Ioudenitch has performed at major international cultural centers including Carnegie Hall (New York), Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), Gasteig (Munich, Germany), Conservatorio Verdi (Milan, Italy), Mariinsky Theater (St. Petersburg, Russia), International Performing Arts Center (Moscow, Russia), The Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory (Moscow, Russia), Forbidden City Concert Hall (Beijing, China), International Piano Festival of La Roque d’Anthéron (France), Théâtre du Châtelet (Paris, France), Bass Hall (Fort Worth, Texas), Jordan Hall (Boston, Massachusetts), Orange County Performing Arts Center (Costa Mesa, California), and the Aspen Music Festival (Aspen, Colorado).
Ioudenitch has had the privilege to perform with the conductors James Conlon, Valery Gergiev, Mikhail Pletnev, James DePreist, Günther Herbig, Asher Fisch, Stefan Sanderling, Michael Stern, Carl St. Clair, and Justus Franz, and with orchestras including the Munich Philharmonic, the Mariinsky Orchestra, National Symphony (Washington, D.C.), Rochester Philharmonic, Honolulu Symphony and the National Philharmonic of Russia. Chamber music partners have included the Takács, Prazák, Borromeo, and Accorda quartets.
His teachers have included Natalia Vasinkina, Dmitri Bashkirov, Galina Eguiazarova, and Karl Ulrich Schnabel, Leon Fleisher, Rosalyn Tureck, William Grant Nabore at the International Piano Foundation in Como, Italy (the current International Piano Academy Lake Como). He subsequently became the youngest teacher ever invited to give master classes at the Academy.
As the founder of the International Center for Music at Park University in Kansas City, he currently serves as both Artistic Director and professor of piano, while also holding a position as a piano professor at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Recently, his contributions to the field of music education were recognized with the prestigious appointment to The Fundación Banco Santander Piano Chair at the Reina Sofía School Of Music in Madrid, Spain in 2022.