Please join us for a Music for Youth Emerging Artists concert featuring award-winning pianist Vitaly Starikov. Vitaly has found distinction with “raw, deeply felt, and powerful” (La Scena) performances, while having an unassuming onstage presence and a “willingness less to play at the audience than to draw [them] into musical intimacies” (Dallas Morning News).
His bold approach won him silver at the 2025 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and the admiration of fans around the globe. His Cliburn performance of Bartok’s Second Piano Concerto electrified the room, with a La Scena reviewer noting that “he understood this music, and gave an impactful, lively, and gripping interpretation on all levels: emotionally, architecturally, and in terms of his sound palette.”
He has performed with the Antwerp and Belgian National Orchestras, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Belarusian State Symphony Orchestra, and St. Petersburg Symphony, and toured with the Orchestre national de Metz Grand Est. This inaugural Cliburn season takes him to the Bravo! Vail and Sunriver Music Festivals, Colorado Springs Philharmonic, and Pacific, Topeka, and Springfield Symphony Orchestras, and in recitals throughout the United States.
Vitaly studied with Vera Gornostayeva, one of the world’s most venerated teachers, at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. He earned his bachelor’s degree at the Conservatory and then his master’s degree, under the tutelage of Eliso Virsaladze. He’s now at the Yale School of Music, pursuing an artist diploma under Boris Berman.
Collaborating with Vitaly on this concert is Music for Youth Emerging Artist, Edouard Ferragu, a sophomore at Hopkins School in New Haven, CT. Edouard currently studies piano with Professor Delana Thomsen and chamber music with Professor Claudia Knafo at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division. Edouard won first & second prizes at the Golden Key Music Festival, Vivo Music Competition, Musical Life Competition and Charleston Competitions and has performed at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and Kaufman Music Center’s Merkin Concert Hall
About the Program
Program details forthcoming. Please check back for updates.