Legato Arts and W Preserve present Nina Kotova, cello and Fabio Bidini, piano, in Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, Monday October 29 at 8PM

Legato Arts and W Preserve are pleased to present Russian-born cellist Nina Kotova and Italian-born pianist Fabio Bidini in a performance of Russian works for cello and piano.  The concert will include their recently recorded Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev Sonatas for cello and piano along with the rarely heard Myaskovsky Cello Sonata No. 1.

 

Tickets are on sale now for the October 29th concert and are available through CarnegieCharge (212-247-7800), online at www.carnegiehall.org and at the Carnegie Hall box office located at 57^th St. and 7^th Ave. in New York City. 

 

About Nina Kotova

 

According to Newsweek magazine, Russian-born cellist Nina Kotova “is a fantastically gifted cellist. Very expressive, imaginative… she has a powerful stage presence." Time magazine states: “She is a musician of high seriousness and real talent”. She has been the subject of numerous features in Vogue, Elle, Hello, The Sunday Telegraph and the Wall Street Journal. Nina Kotova has appeared on the covers of Classic FM, Gramophone China, Il Venerdi Italia and Reader's Digest and on television on A&E’s “Breakfast with the Arts” and the “Charlie Rose Show”.

 

Nina Kotova studied at the Moscow Conservatory and the Musikhochschule in Cologne, giving her first performance as a soloist with orchestra at the age 11 and graduating summa cum laude. She made her Western debut at Wigmore Hall, performed at the Barbican Centre in London in 1996, released her chart-topping debut album for Philips Classics and made her Carnegie Hall debut in 1999. Ms. Kotova has performed in recital and as a soloist with major orchestras across the globe touring the capitals of Europe, Asia and the Americas. She has performed at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and at the Berlin Philharmonic and has collaborated with leading artists and conductors such as Vladimir Jurowski, Jean Yves Thibaudet, Antonio Pappano, John Malkovich, Helene Grimaud, Jeremy Irons, Joshua Bell, Lang Lang, Sarah Chang, Sting and many more. She has had the distinction of performing live in broadcast from Red Square in Moscow, for the Imperial family of Japan and at Buckingham Palace in a special concert for Prince Charles.

 

In 2011 Ms. Kotova was presented an award for her outstanding cultural contribution to Tuscany from the Tuscan-American Association as a co-founder of the Tuscan Sun Festival. Nina Kotova co-founded the Tuscan Sun Festival in 2003 and its sister-festival Festival Del Sole in Napa Valley in 2006 and served as the Artistic Director of the Tuscan Sun Festival (also known as the Festival del Sole) in Cortona, Italy. She has also taught as an Artist in Residence at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas. In addition to her debut album for Philips Classics, Ms. Kotova has recorded the Bloch “Shelomo” and her own Cello Concerto, the Dvorak Cello Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra for Sony Classics, the Deutsche Grammophon compilation “Masters of the Bow” paying homage to the greatest cellists of the last 50 years, the recently released recording of the Bach Six Cello Suites and the album release of Russian cello sonatas for Warner Classics.

 

A composer herself and a champion of contemporary music, Ms. Kotova has commissioned and premiered numerous works from leading composers. Her Cello Concerto was premiered in San Francisco to rave reviews. The San Francisco Chronicle said: “Like Rihm in 1974, so Kotova in 2000 stands in defiance of last century’s modernism and the new simplicity of so much recent music. Her Cello Concerto is a complex, gripping affair.”

 

 

About Fabio Bidini

 

Italian pianist Fabio Bidini is one of this generation's top-flight pianists.  His appearances have included performances with the London Symphony Orchestra at The Barbican, The Philharmonia Orchestra of London at Royal Festival Hall, the San Francisco Symphony, New World Symphony, Dallas Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra Prague at the Rudolphinum, and the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra at Liszt Academy Hall.  He has collaborated with conductors including Michael Tilson Thomas, Carlos Prieto, Max Valdes, Dimitry Sitkovetsky, Ivan Fisher, Jesus Lopez Cobos, JoAnn Falletta, Zoltan Kocsis, Micheal Christie and Gianandrea Noseda.

 

Mr. Bidini has performed repeatedly at the prestigious festivals of Europe, including the Tuscan Sun Festival Cortona/Napa, Festival Radio France Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon, La Roque d'Anthéron International Piano Festival, Stern Grove Festival, Arturo Benedetti Michaelangeli International Piano Festival, Festival dei due Mondi and most recently, Grant Park Festival.

 

Mr. Bidini began his piano studies at the age of five.  He graduated magna cum laude from the Cecilia Conservatory in Rome and studied composition at the Florence Conservatory.  He has been awarded first prize in eleven of Italy's most prestigious national piano competitions and has been the recipient of the top prizes awarded in eight international competitions - Terni, Köln, Busoni 1988 and 1992, Pretoria, Marsala, London and the Van Cliburn Fort Worth.  He made his North American debut in 1993 with the Atlanta Symphony.

 

Fabio Bidini is also in great demand as a chamber music partner.  He is the pianist of the highly acclaimed ensemble, Trio Solisti, and has enjoyed artistic collaboration with many ensembles and artists including the American String Quartet, the Janacek Quartet, the Brodsky Quartet, The Symanowski Quartet, the Modigliani Quartet, Zoltan Kocsis, Alexis Pia Gerlach, Maria Bachmann, Eva Urbanova, Nina Kotova, Dimitri Ashkenazy and Sabrina-Vivian Höpcker.  A stable duo is being formed with the latter, and Mr. Bidini and she have laid the foundation for an extensive collaboration with the publication of their debut recording of sonatas of Prokofiev and R. Strauss with the label True Sounds.  In 2015 Fabio Bidini became the first recipient of the Carol Grigor Piano Chair - a new position enabled by a five million dollar endowment gift from the Colburn School's board chairwoman Carol Colburn Grigor in Los Angeles.  Mr. Bidini has been Professor of Piano at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler, in Berlin, one of Europe's premiere music conservatories.  He also serves as Artist-in-Residence at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Köln.  He is a Steinway artist

 

 

 

 

The Program

 

Nikolai Myaskovsky: Cello Sonata No. 1 in D Major, Op. 12

Sergei Prokofiev: Cello Sonata in C Major, Op. 119

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Sonata in G minor for Cello and Piano, Op. 19                     

 

 

Contact: Norman Dunfee  

Press@legatoarts.com