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“The Russian pianist Arsentiy Kharitonov proved to be the newest addition
to the top ranks of this season’s artists,” said The New York Observer,
citing his Carnegie Hall debut as one of the top six concerts of the
season. Fanfare Magazine writes “Arsentiy Kharitonov’s sumptuous tone,
technical mastery, broad dramatic range, and elegant phrasing place
him in the top ranks of keyboard players today. Above this, and trumping
most of the musical gymnasts of the day, there is genuine poetry here,
the ring of truth, and, it seems to me, a rare sincerity issuing from
a deep place in the pianist’s heart.” This remarkable artist, a graduate
of St. Petersburg’s Rimsky-Korsakoff Conservatory of Music, is first
prizewinner of the Franz Liszt International Piano Competition (US),
and the Rachmaninoff Competition (Russian Federation). After winning
the Rachmaninoff Competition, he began his concert career with engagements
throughout Europe, including appearances at the Philharmonic Hall
and Marinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, the Royal Conservatory, Stockholm,
and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, followed by an Asian tour with
performances in the major halls of Shanghai, Beijing, and Seoul. In
the West he has appeared recently at Catholic University in Washington,
St. John’s Cathedral, Los Angeles, Steinway Hall, Dallas, and New
York’s Carnegie Hall. The Observer wrote of this concert “…his style
is unlike any of his contemporaries, and harkens back to earlier times.
The dynamic range had an astonishing breadth and the lyric passages
were especially captivating. Rachmaninoff ’s structurally awkward
variations on a theme of Chopin became a gracefully proportioned whole
unlike this reviewer has heard before. This was a performance to remember.”
His recordings include the complete piano works of Leo Orenstein as
well as the complete chamber works of Robert Kahn for Toccata Classics.
This company will also release an album of the artist’s own compositions
later this year. Masterpieces by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Scriabin
can be heard on Hartshorn Classical label, which will soon release
an album of the pianist performing pieces by Chopin, Haydn, and Rameau.
Kharitonov currently teaches at the University of North Texas while
maintaining a busy schedule of recordings and concert appearances
worldwide
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