For Immediate Release February 15, 2013

Contact: Leah Ammon, (408) 961-5814 lammon@montalvoarts.org

Natasha Paremski Comes Home

Gifted young pianist returns to the South Bay for dream recital at Montalvo
Flawless technique and unbeatable energy BBC Music Magazine A young pianist of prodigious technique and striking stage presence. Washington Post

SARATOGA, Calif. The Montalvo Arts Center Piano Masters Series continues with yet another performance by a remarkable musician: Russian-born, Fremont-

raised Natasha Paremski will perform on Sunday, March 3, at 7:30pm. Ticketswhich begin at $40 for the general public, $36 for Montalvo members, and $15 for students with IDare available at montalvoarts.org and through the Box Office at 408-961-5858 (M-F, 11am-4pm). With this concert, Montalvo contines its mission to bring diverse, world-class talent to South Bay
Photo: Andrea Joynt.

audiences.

For Paremski, the engagement at Montalvo is something of a homecoming as well as the fulfillment of a long-cherished fantasy. When I was a child, I spent countless weekends visiting the Montalvo Arts Center with my family for concerts and hikes, she said. I only ever dreamed Id someday be able to perform there. What a joy it is to be able to finally realize this dream, and with a program that I hold so near and dear to my heart: I'll be playing Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor (The Tempest), Chopin's Scherzo No. 3 in C sharp minor, and Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.

Only 25 years old, Natasha Paremski has already established herself as a major pianistic talent. She is hailed by critics both in this country and abroad for her musical sensibility, impecable technique, and electrifying showmanship. Her growing list of awards includes the 2010 Classical Recording Foundations Young Artist
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of the Year, the 2007 Prix Montblanc, the 2006 Gilmore Young Artist Award, top prize in the 2002 Bronislaw Kaper Awards sponsored by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and top prize in the Young Artists in Carnegie Hall 2000 International Piano Festival.

Paremski has been fascinated by the piano almost as long as she has been able to speak. As a toddler, she spent hours sitting at the piano in her familys Moscow apartment picking out tunes on the keyboard. To me, it was a fun toy that made all these beautiful sounds, Paremski recalled. "My mom hated it. I didn't have a musical ear at age 2." Impressed by her innate affinity for the instrument, her parents enrolled her in formal music instruction at age four. She studied with Nina Malikova at the Andreyev School of Music.

In 1995, her family immigrated to the United States, eventually settling in Fremont, California. Paremski continued her studies at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and made her professional dbut at age nine with the El Camino Youth Symphony. At the age of fifteen, she debuted with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and recorded two discs on the Bel Air Music Label with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra under Dmitry Yablonsky. The following year, she went off to study in New York with Pavlina Dokovska at Mannes College of Music, from which she graduated in 2007. As her career has blossomed, Paremski has toured on both sides of the Atlantic, performing as a soloist with some of the worlds most distinguished orchestras. In North America, these include the Toronto Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Houston Symphony, Berkeley Symphony, Dallas Symphony, New York Youth Symphony at Carnegie Hall. In Europe and Asia, these include the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan. She has also given recitals at Londons Wigmore Hall, the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, the Schloss Elmau and Verbier festivals, and on the Rising Stars Series of Gilmore and Ravinia.
Photo: Andrea Joynt.

Paremskis accomplishments extend beyond realm of classical music and the formal concert hall. For the past five years, she has enjoyed a collaborative relationship with rocker Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler, who recruited her for a theater project about the lives of Robert and Clara Schumann. This project came to fruition in 2010 with a performance at the Allen Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center: Paremski embodied the
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spirit of Clara Schumann while pianist Jeremy Denk embodied Robert. The performance was later released on DVD. Additionally, in 2008, Paremski was featured in a major two-part film for BBC Television on the life and work of Tchaikovsky, shot on location in St. Petersburg, also to result of a partnership with Sting and Styler. That same year, Paremski was the featured pianist in choreographer Benjamin Millepieds Danse Concertantes at New Yorks Joyce Theatre.

A passionate advocate for new music, Paremski includes in her repetoire compositions by John Corigliano and Fred Hersch. In 2012, she played the New York premiere of Herschs Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky, which he composed specifically for her. Last November, in addition to appearing in WQXR's Beethoven Marathon, she released her first solo album, a collection of sonatas by Brahms, Prokofiev and Kahane. It debuted at number nine on the Billboard classical chart.

NATASHA PAREMSKI, SOLO PIANO What: Recital by prodigiously talented pianist, Natasha Paremski When: Sunday, March 3, 2013, 7:30 p.m. Where: Carriage House Theater at Montalvo Arts Center, 15400 Montalvo Road, Saratoga Admission: General: $45/$40 | Members: $40/$36. Tickets available through the Montalvo Box Office, Monday-Friday, 10am4 pm at (408) 961-5858 and on www.montalvoarts.org.

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Montalvo Arts Center is an oasis of culture and nature whose mission is to create and present arts of all types, nurture artists, and use our historic Villa, buildings, and grounds in innovative ways that engage people in the creative process. Located in Silicon Valley's Saratoga hills, Montalvo occupies a Mediterranean-style Villa, built in 1912 by Senator James Duval Phelan, surrounded by 175 stunning acres, including the campus of our international Lucas Artists Residency Program. Senator Phelan bequeathed the villa and grounds to the people of California for the encouragement of art, music, literature and architecture, a mandate that Montalvo has carried forward ever since its founding. For more information about Montalvo Arts Center, call (408) 961-5800 or visit www.montalvoarts.org.

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