Meet the Official Accompanists for the 2002 Competition:
Rohan De Silva
Rohan De Silva's partnerships with violin virtuosos Itzhak Perlman, Cho-Liang Lin, Midori, Joshua Bell, Benny Kim, Kyoko Takezawa, Vadim Repin, Gil Shaham, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, and Julian Rachlin have led to highly acclaimed performances at recital venues all over the world. With these and other artists he has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall, the Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, Philadelphia Academy of Music, Ambassador Theater in Los Angeles, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall in London, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Mozarteum in Salzburg and La Scala in Milan. His festival appearances include the Aspen, Interlochen, Manchester, Ravinia and Schleswig-Holstein festivals, the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, and the Wellington Arts Festival in New Zealand. He performs frequently with Itzhak Perlman, and was seen with Mr. Perlman on PBS' Live from Lincoln Center broadcast in early January 2000.
Mr. De Silva, a native of Sri Lanka, began his piano studies with his mother. He then spent six years at the Royal Academy of Music in London where, upon his graduation, he was awarded the Chappell Gold Medal for best overall performance. Mr. De Silva was the first recipient of a special scholarship in the arts from the Presidents Fund of Sri Lanka. This enabled him to enter The Juilliard School, where he received both his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees. He was awarded a special prize as Best Accompanist at the 1990 Ninth International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
Mr. De Silva joined the collaborative arts and chamber music faculty of The Juilliard School in 1991, and in 1992 he was awarded honorary Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. During the summers of 2000 and 2001 he was a faculty member at the Perlman Music Program on Long Island. In 2001, he joined the faculty at the Ishikawa Music Academy in Japan, where he gives masterclasses in collaborative piano. Radio and television credits include The Tonight Show with Midori, CNN's "Showbiz Today", NHK Television in Japan, National Public Radio, WQXR and WNYC in New York, and Berlin Radio. He has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, CBS/SONY Classical, Collins Classics in London, and RCA Victor.
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Akira Eguchi
Acclaimed for his extraordinary artistry, maturity and intelligence, Akira Eguchi has captivated audiences and critics throughout the world as a piano soloist, chamber musician, harpsichord player and collaborative pianist.
Since making his highly acclaimed New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall in 1992, Mr. Eguchi has performed in the foremost music centers of the United States, Europe, and the Far East. Praised as a “pianist of fluency and rectitude” by The New York Times, his appearances in the United States include Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the 92nd Street Y in New York City, and the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Distinguished for his performances for heads of State, Mr. Eguchi has played for President Clinton with Isaac Stern at the White House and for the Emperor and Empress of Japan at Hamarikyu Ashahi Hall in Tokyo. As a student at Juilliard, Mr. Eguchi was the featured soloist for The Juilliard Orchestra Asia tour, and has since been featured in numerous tours of the United States, France, England, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Slovenia, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Canada, Mexico, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan, encompassing numerous recitals and concerts with many of those countries’ foremost ensembles.
In great demand as a chamber musician, Mr. Eguchi has performed at the Aspen, Ravinia, and Newport festivals in the United States, Nagano-Aspen and Pacific in Japan, the Japan Festival in London, and the Verbier Festival in Switzerland. His radio and television credits include performances on WQXR and WNCN in New York, NPR, NHK of Japan, Radio France, BBC, PBS, and NBC, amongst others.
Mr. Eguchi is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including the prestigious William Petchek Award and the William Schuman Prize from The Juilliard School for outstanding achievement and leadership in music, first prize at both the Gina Bachauer International Scholarship Competition and the Brahms Piano Concerto Competition at Juilliard, awards at the International Chamber Music Competition in Paris, and the Aleida Schweitzer Award for the outstanding accompanist at the International Wieniawski Violin Competition in Poland. Also active as a composer, Mr. Eguchi’s works include cadenzas for the Haydn Cello Concerto and the Mozart Violin Concerto, which were commissioned and performed by Kyoko Takezawa for the Miyazaki Music Festival.
Born in Tokyo, Mr. Eguchi received a degree in Music Composition from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, where he subsequently served as a faculty member. Currently living in New York and on the faculty of CUNY Brooklyn College, Mr. Eguchi received his Master’s Degree in Piano Performance from The Juilliard School.
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Nelson Padgett
A native of North Carolina and a resident of New York City, Nelson Padgett enjoys an extremely varied and busy musical life. His awards as a soloist include a Silver Medal from the William Kapell International Competition and a Beethoven Fellowship from the American Pianists Association. As a collaborator, he has performed with violinists Pamela Frank, Elmar Oliveira, Nai Yuan Hu, and Nicholas Eanet. For the past three summers he has been an accompanist at the Meadowmount School of Music. Mr. Padgett is active in new music, having performed frequently with the Philip Glass Ensemble, with Steve Reich and Musicians, and with the microtonal group Newband. His recent credits include the soundtrack for "The Deep End" and for the ABC documentary "Report from Ground Zero." A student of Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory of Music and Clifton Matthews at the North Carolina School of the Arts, he has been heard at the Mostly Mozart, Newport,and Caramoor Festivals.
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