Book Olga Kern

Olga Kern is a Russian-American concert pianist and Steinway artist celebrated for her powerful, romantic interpretations of the Russian repertoire. Trained at the Moscow Conservatory under Sergei Dorensky, where she also completed postgraduate studies, she gained international fame in June 2001 at the Eleventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, sharing the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Gold Medal with Stanislav Ioudenitch and becoming the first woman in three decades to take the top prize. Her Cliburn journey is captured in the documentaries Playing on the Edge (2001), They Came to Play (2008) and The Cliburn: 50 Years of Gold, and in a dedicated film, Olga's Journey (2003). Her recordings include Transcriptions / Corelli Variations (2004), Rachmaninov: Sonata no. 2 / Balakirev: Islamey (2004), Variations, op. 21 / 24 / 35 (2007), Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 35 / No. 3 / Op. 58 (2010) and Shostakovich / Rachmaninov (2012). She teaches at the Manhattan School of Music, leads master classes at Yale and the 92nd Street Y, and serves on international competition juries. In recital she offers virtuosic, deeply expressive classical performance.