Carnegie Mellon University
September 29, 2014

Sergey Schepkin, Associate Professor of Piano, To Perform Bach's Six Keyboard Partitas on Oct. 11

Contacts: Dana Casto / 412-268-4921 / dcasto@cmu.edu
                Pam Wigley / 412-268-1047 / pwigley@andrew.cmu.edu

SchepkinPITTSBURGH—Sergey Schepkin, pianist and associate professor of piano at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Music, will give a recital on Oct. 11 featuring J. S. Bach's Six Keyboard Partitas, BWV 825-830. The 7:30 p.m. recital at Mellon Institute Auditorium in Oakland will be the first of three Partitas recitals that Schepkin will give to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his first performance of the cycle. The second recital will take place on Oct. 30 in New York City's Greenwich House in Greenwich Village, and the final performance will take place on Nov. 16 as part of the Rockport Music Festival in Rockport, Mass.

Schepkin started performing Bach's Partitas as a cycle 20 years ago while he was a doctoral student at New England Conservatory. Schepkin's performances of the Partitas have garnered him great acclaim from The New York Times and The Boston Globe. After his 1995 Partitas recital at Weill Recital Hall in New York City, the Times wrote: "...Two years after his New York debut, he played Bach's six Partitas with striking purity of tone, complete technical control and restless intelligence. ...Mr. Schepkin's lofty perspective held one mesmerized. ...His next thoughts on this repertory are eagerly awaited."

The Russian-American pianist has performed around the globe. He made his Carnegie Hall recital debut in 1993 and has performed in the Great Performers Series at Lincoln Center, Celebrity Series of Boston, LACMA and Maestro Series in Los Angeles. He has performed at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, St. Petersburg Grand and Chamber Philharmonic Halls, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and the Sumida Triphony Hall in Tokyo, among many others.

Schepkin is recognized as one of the world's foremost interpreters of works by Johann Sebastian Bach, and was hailed by The New York Times as "a formidable Bach pianist ... [who] plays with the passion and drama of a young Glenn Gould." The Boston Phoenix once described him as "one of Boston's great treasures, a supremely intelligent pianist who plays Bach as well as anyone."

Schepkin's discography includes major works by Bach (the complete Well-Tempered Clavier, the Partitas, the French Suites, the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, Italian Concerto, French Overture, Four Duets, and the Goldberg Variations), Brahms (complete late piano works), Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff, Debussy and Schnittke.

Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Schepkin studied piano at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with Alexandra Zhukovsky, Grigory Sokolov, Alexander Ikharev and Ekaterina Murina. He made his orchestral début with the St. Petersburg Academic Symphony Orchestra in 1984. After his move to the U.S. in 1990, he studied with Russell Sherman at New England Conservatory (NEC), where he earned an artist diploma in 1992 and a doctor of musical arts degree in 1999. From 1994-98, he coached with the late legendary French-American pianist Paul Doguereau.

Schepkin has served as associate professor of piano at Carnegie Mellon since 2003 and has been a member of the piano faculty at the NEC School of Preparatory and Continuing Education since 1993. A full biography is available at http://music.cmu.edu/profiles?utf8=?&q=schepkin.

The Oct. 11 recital is free and open to the public. More information is available at http://music.cmu.edu/events/416.

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CMU's Sergey Schepkin (pictured) started performing Bach's Partitas as a cycle 20 years ago while he was a doctoral student at New England Conservatory. The Russian-born associate professor's performances have garnered him great acclaim from The New York Times and The Boston Globe.