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Elena Klionsky began playing the piano at the age of five in her native St. Petersburg, Russia, and gave her first public performance at the age of six. Upon her family's relocation to the United States in 1974, she continued her studies at The Juilliard School of Music, where she began at the Pre-College Division and subsequently earned her bachelor and master degrees and was the recipient of the prestigious Petschek Scholarship. At the Juilliard School, she was among the very few to have the opportunity of studying with some of the most distinguished teachers in the world: Nadia Reisenberg, Adele Marcus, William Masselos, and Jacob Lateiner. Her Chamber Music teachers were Dorothy Delay, Harvey Shapiro, and Tossy Spivakovsky. While in high school, at New York City’s renowned High School for the Performing Arts, where she graduated with the B’nai B’rith Award for Outstanding Performance in Music, she was named “Promising Young Artist” by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts and chosen to play the piano for a cameo role in the MGM movie “Fame”.
Her love of chamber music has taken Ms. Klionsky on tours to Holland, Belgium, Italy, and Canada. She has also performed Duo Piano concerts with a Taiwanese pianist Virginia Wei-Tsen Shiao with whom she has recorded for Solaris Classics. She recorded American and Belgian contemporary repertoire for Belgian radio. Ms. Klionsky appeared on American TV at the age of eleven on ABC’s “People, Places, and Things” and on the WNYC radio’s “Young American Artists” broadcasts at the age of thirteen. She has made appearances on television in Finland, the Soviet Union and on radio in the Netherlands and Mexico. Ms. Klionsky enjoys performing the Piano Sonatas of the world renowned contemporary composer Vincent Persichetti -- she was very fortunate to work on these pieces with the composer himself during her time at The Juilliard School. Today, Elena works closely with Mr. Persichetti's student, the Argentinian-American-French award-winning composer Martin Matalon. Steve Smith from The New York Times described the US premiere of Mr. Matalon's TRAME IV (for Piano and eleven instruments) in New York's Lincoln Center as "...intricately woven and brilliantly eventful performance of TRAME IV by the assured soloist Elena Klionsky..." She is currently working on a recording of Mr. Matalon's Piano music for NAXOS. Ms. Klionsky’s extensive repertoire and profound understanding of Beethoven’s work has brought her invitations to speak about Beethoven’s life and music to diverse audiences across the United States as well as abroad.
Ms. Klionsky has been selected for listing in American Keyboard Artists and World Who's Who of Women. Elena Klionsky lives with her family in New York City. |
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