Great French Sonatas with Masha Lakisova and Maxim Lando – LIVESTREAM CONCERT

To view the livestream visit https://youtu.be/_Cm97UaQErI

MASHA LAKISOVA, VIOLINIST
“While it is not out of the ordinary for me to come across immensely and precociously talented youngsters as host of “From the Top,” it is quite a rarity to be introduced to a very young artist who displays not only incredible facility but the truest manifestations of artistry: devotion and dedication, a personal and rigorously integral aesthetic point of view, and the requisite leadership and responsibility for inspiring her peers. Masha Lakisova is just such a rarity, a true artist destined for great things.”
-Christopher O’Riley, Host, NPR’s “From the Top”

“Ms. Lakisova is one of the most brilliant, communicative, and intelligent young musicians I have had the pleasure of hearing in recent years. She possesses a wonderful natural stage presence, musical maturity well beyond her young age, and a virtuoso command of her instrument which is always at the service of music.”
-Vadim Gluzman, Violinist, Stradivari Society Artistic Advisor, and Recipient of the “Leopold Auer” Stradivari violin, 1690

At just nineteen, Chicago violinist Masha Lakisova is fast becoming one of the rising stars of her generation. She has had the privilege of performing in esteemed concert venues in the United States and all over the world. Masha has appeared as a soloist with orchestras worldwide such as Kremerata Baltica, HEMU, Fox Valley Symphony Orchestra, Skokie Valley Symphony Orchestra, and Lake Forest Symphony. At the North Shore Chamber Music Festival, she became the first recipient of the Arkady Fomin Scholarship in 2015. She was featured on NPR’s “From The Top” four times, where she received the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award, and on WFMT’s Introductions, both as a soloist and as a member of various chamber groups.

She has taken top prizes at prestigious competitions such as 3rd prize at the 2020 Stulberg and Klein International String Competitions, 1st prize at the 2018 Tibor Junior and 2nd prize at the 2015 Andrea Postacchini International Violin Competitions, National YoungArts, and the Walgreens National Concerto Competition. She also became a finalist at the 2013 International Louis Spohr Violin Competition.

From 2011-2017, Masha was a member of Midwest Young Artists Conservatory, where she served as concertmaster in three orchestras and played first violin in four chamber groups. Her chamber groups have won two consecutive Gold Medals at the 2016 and 2017 Fischoff International Chamber Music Competitions. They received 1st Prize in the 2015 and 2016 Rembrandt High School Chamber Music Competitions, as well as 1st Prize and the Audience Prize at the WDAV Young Chamber Musicians Competition in 2017. They were also the overall winners at the 2016 Discover Chamber Music Competition and Silver Medalists at the 2016 St. Paul String Quartet Chamber Music Competition. In 2018, Quartet Bellezza was accepted to the Julliard String Quartet Seminar.

Masha currently studies with Miriam Fried at New England Conservatory, where she is a recipient of the Dean’s Scholarship. She graduated from Julliard Pre-College where she studied with Itzhak Perlman and Li Lin, and she has also previously been a student of Grigory Kalinovsky, Drew Lecher, and Larisa Zhizhin. Masha has taken lessons and masterclasses with such prominent virtuosi as Ana Chumachenko, Anne Sophie Mutter, Pinchas Zukerman, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Paul Huang, Augustin Hadelich, and Ida Kavafian. She has collaborated with Vadim Gluzman, Pavel Vernikov, Svetlin Roussev, Ilya Kaler, Yossif Ivanov, Masumi Per Rostad, Rose Armbrust Griffin, Ani Aznavoorian, Mark Kosower, Christopher O’Riley, David Schrader, and the Ariel Quartet.

Masha has been involved with many prestigious summer music festivals. In 2015, she attended the Heifetz Music Institute and has been a student at the Perlman Music Program since 2016.

Miss Lakisova is the proud recipient of a magnificent violin by Giovanni Francesco Pressenda, Turin, 1845 on loan from The Stradivari Society of Chicago thanks to the generosity of her patron, Edward Manzo.

MAXIM LANDO, PIANIST
18 year old American pianist Maxim Lando was awarded the prestigious 2020 Gilmore Young Artist Award, and was also recently named Musical America’s New Artist of the Month. He first received international attention in 2017, appearing on the piano bench alongside Lang Lang to perform the parts intended for Mr. Lang’s injured left hand at Carnegie Hall’s Gala Opening Night. Chick Corea joined them for an unprecedented three-pianist version of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” with the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The collaboration was chronicled in The New York Times.

Maxim has performed with major orchestras of the world including symphonies of Pittsburgh, Toronto, Vancouver and Hawaii, Russia’s Mariinsky Theater Orchestra, St. Petersburg Symphony, Russian National Orchestra, Bolshoi Symphony, Moscow Philharmonic, Kazakh State Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, and China’s NCPA Orchestra. Highlights of last season include over 40 virtual concerts during the COVID-19 pandemic; a tour of the Beethoven Triple Concerto with Daniel Hope, Lynn Harrell, and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra; and performances of Chausson Concerto for Violin and Piano with Daniel Hope and the New Century Chamber Orchestra. This coming season Maxim looks forward to debut solo concerts at Alte Oper Frankfurt, and Essen Philharmonic in Germany; a series of chamber music concerts at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival; and performances with the Neubrandenburger Philharmonie, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Kalamazoo Symphony, and numerous other regional orchestras.

Maxim won First Prize and four special prizes at the 2018 Young Concert Artists International Auditions. He opened the 2019-20 Young Concert Artists Series with recital debuts in the Peter Marino Concert at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall, and at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater. His sold-out debut program included Liszt’s complete Transcendental Etudes and according to NY Times critic Anthony Tommasini “…he already has what it takes to dispatch it brilliantly.”

Maxim was invited to play at the grand opening of Steinway and Sons in Beijing, and has also performed at the National Center for Performing Arts in Beijing, Symphony Hall in Shenzhen, Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, Samos Young Artist Festival in Greece, Rising Stars Munich, Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players in New York City, Ravinia Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Jay Pritzker Pavilion at Chicago’s Millennium Park, the D.C. Cosmos Club, and the GRAMMY Salute to Classical Music at Carnegie Hall.

As the only American to have been awarded the Gold Prize at the International Television Contest “Nutcracker” for Young Musicians in Moscow, Mr. Lando has received continuous support from the Musical Olympus Foundation over the past several years and is invited often to perform in Russia’s most prestigious halls.

Dedicated to making classical music accessible to his own generation, Maxim Lando has been featured on CNN’s Best of Quest, NPR’s From The Top, BBC Radio 4, Bavarian Radio, Russia’s TV Kultura, The Violin Channel, and WQXR. A proponent of Sing For Hope’s mission, he served as a last-minute replacement for Lea Salonga at its 2017 Gala.

Maxim Lando is the 2019 Artemisia Laureate, an Artemisia Akademie Fellow at Yale University alumnus, and winner of the Gold Medal at the 2017 Berlin International Music Competition. He is a proud alumnus of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation, and has been a student of Hung-Kuan Chen and Tema Blackstone at Juilliard Pre-College since the age of 11. Maxim will enter Juilliard as a college student this fall.