Praised by The New York Times for his ‘uncommon sensitivity and feeling’, the eloquent pianist Roman Rabinovich was the winner of the 12th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in 2008. His subsequent career has led him to perform throughout Europe and the USA in venues as Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory, Cité de la Musique in Paris and Washington DC’s Kennedy Center. He has appeared with orchestras including Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Sarasota Orchestra, Meininger Hofkapelle, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, KBS Symphony, Prague Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic and all the major Israeli orchestras and collaborated with conductors such as and Sir Roger Norrington, Zubin Mehta, Ludovic Morlot, Kristjan Järvi, Gerard Schwarz and Joseph Swensen.
At the opening of the 2022-23 season, Roman Rabinovich made his Carnegie Hall Concerto Debut, stepping in at 24-hours’ notice with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in Mozart’s Concerto K. 271. Other highlights of the season include the Tchaikovsky Concerto no. 1 with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Ludovic Morlot, the Greig Concerto with Edmonton Symphony and Michael Stern, Bach’s d minor Concerto with the NFM Leopoldinum and Joseph Swensen, the Schubert/Liszt ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy with Israel Symphony and Christoph Koenig, Rachmaninov Concerto no. 2 with Punta Gorda Symphony and Mozart’s Concerto K. 488 with Helena Symphony. This season’s recital engagements include Portland Piano International, the Steinway Series at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Philip Lorenz Memorial Piano Series, Maverick Concerts and Music at MoCA Concert Series.
Dubbed ‘a true polymath, in the Renaissance sense of the word’ (Seen & Heard International, 2016), Rabinovich is also a composer and visual artist with a repertoire spanning six centuries, from Byrd to Boulez and beyond. He has won critical acclaim for interpretations of the music of Haydn. In summer 2016 he embarked upon the Haydn Project, encompassing recital series of Haydn’s complete keyboard sonatas; these have included cycles at the Lammermuir and Bath Festivals in UK and at Chamberfest Cleveland in the US; he has also appeared at the Herbstgold Festival in Eisenstadt, and curated a three-concert Haydn Day at Wigmore Hall. The first two volumes of his complete Haydn Cycle on First Hand Records have been released to critical acclaim, with BBC Music Magazine noting ‘the elegance and liveliness of Rabinovich’s keyboard style are, indeed, a joy to listen to, and his unfailing musicality and inventiveness allows him to penetrate to the expressive heart of Haydn’s world.’
Together with his wife, violinist Diana Cohen, Roman Rabinovich is co-director of ChamberFest Cleveland as well as the newly inaugurated ChamberFest West festival in Calgary,. During the 2020-21 global pandemic, the pair gave a very successful series of free weekly concerts from their front yard in Calgary, Canada.
Roman Rabinovich) made his Israel Philharmonic debut under Zubin Mehta aged 10, having immigrated to Israel a year before from Tashkent, Uzbekistan. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music as a student of Seymour Lipkin, he went on to earn his Masters degree at the Juilliard School where he studied with Robert McDonald. He was among the first of three young pianists to be championed by Sir András Schiff for his ‘Building Bridges’ series.
The Southeastern Piano Festival is grateful to the many generous individuals and businesses that help our festival become a reality. Steinway and Sons is the official performance piano of the festival. The Symphony League of the South Carolina Philharmonic sponsors the Arthur Fraser International Concerto Competition.
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