irina kats, piano

Pianist Irina Kats enjoys a career as a teacher, soloist, chamber musician and accompanist. According to The Washington Post, she is a "splendidly able accompanist" with "considerable emotional powers." Ms. Kats' career began in her native Russia, where she graduated with honors, studying with the great pianist and teacher Vasily Pavlov, from the Astrakhan Conservatory and the Kazan Post-Graduate Music School.
 
During her time in Russia, Ms. Kats was an active piano performer with a broad repertoire that included classical, romantic and contemporary masterpieces of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt Moussorgsky, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev. In addition, she has been a frequent performer on television and radio broadcasts.
 
In 1996, Ms. Kats came to the United States where she taught privately before taking a position at Levine Music in Washington, DC in 1998. Since joining Levine's piano faculty, she has resumed her performance career as a chamber musician and accompanist, performing throughout the Northeast region of the United States. She has collablorated with such musicians as Slovakian sopranos Eva Blagove and Sisa Sclovsk, chellist John Gevorkian, horn soloist Eric Rusk and baritone Jerome Barry in such venues as the Austrian Slovakian Embassies, The Lyceum in Alexandria, VA and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. ms. Kats also collaborated with violinist Mihai Craioveanu at the Romanian Embassy in Washington, DC, Holland,

vanessa fadial, piano

Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, pianist Vanessa Fadial began piano lessons at the age of four. As a young pianist, she won several competitions and at 11, performed on WDAV, the local classical radio station. She went on to high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts. As a student, she won fellowships to attend the Tibor Varga Festival in Sion, Switzerland, Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada, and Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. She was a teaching assistant for four years at Stony Brook University and a member of the Graduate Trio.

In addition to a DMA in solo piano performance from Stony Brook University, she also has a Master degree in solo performance, a Master degree in Collaborative Piano from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and a Bachelor degree in solo performance (’92) from Oberlin Conservatory. Her primary instructors included Robert McDonald, Robert Shannon, Anne Epperson, and Christina Dahl, as well as studies and master classes with Gilbert Kalish, Jerome Lowenthal, Claude Frank, and Menahem Pressler.

Dr. Fadial has a vital interest in performing music by living composers and as a member of the Yarbo/Fadial Duo, with violinist, Anyango Yarbo-Davenport, they are working on recording their debut CD, to be released in 2017. This will include premieres of works by Dan Visconti, and Grammy Award winner, Robert Livingston Aldridge. The Yarbo-Davenport Duo recently performed at the South Pasadena Library in California and in New York City.

While living in New York City, she was on the roster of the Golden Key Salon Series at Klavierhaus, was a member of the New York–based chamber group the Circadia Ensemble, and performed with her trio on the Trinity Concerts at One series at Trinity Church, Wall Street. Also a member of the Lilac Piano Quartet, formed with members of the Rochester Philharmonic, she performed on WXXI’s, backstage pass radio program and at the George Eastman House.

Her students have won numerous competitions over the years, including MTNA Baldwin Junior, SYMF Chopin Competition, and Piano Competition of the Music of Nicholas Flagello, four years in a row. Also at the Third Street Music School Settlement Concerto Competition in New York City, 4 years in a row, and the International Young Artists Competition in Washington DC.

Dr. Fadial is a highly regarded teacher, chamber music coach and adjudicator. She is a member of the Music Teacher’s Association of California and teaches on the faculty of the Colburn Community School of Performing Arts.

r. kent cook, piano

Dr. R. Kent Cook is Professor of Piano and Head of the Keyboard Department at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois.  He keeps an active schedule as soloist and chamber musician, having performed in venues throughout the United States and abroad.  Regionally, he has appeared in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin, while in Europe, he has performed in Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, England, France, Germany and Italy.

R. Kent Cook hails from Odessa, Texas where he began to play the piano at age six.  He attended Baylor University to pursue dentistry, but quickly began serious study of the piano.  After finishing a Piano Performance Degree with honors under the guidance of Roger Keyes, he continued his studies at Indiana University receiving both his Masters and Doctorate Degrees in Piano Performance.  He has worked with distinguished pianists Leonard Hokanson, Eteri Andjaparidze, Michel Block, James Tocco, and Karen Shaw, and in 1992-93, he studied with Herbert Seidel as a Fulbright Scholar at the Hochschule für Musik in Frankfurt, Germany.

Before joining the piano faculty at Illinois Wesleyan University in 1999, Dr. Cook served on music faculties at DePauw University, the Indiana University Piano Academy, and the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp.  He is currently active as an adjudicator and master teacher throughout the Midwest, and during the summer he teaches at the Illinois Chamber Music Festival.  In 2009, he joined the faculty of the International Chamber Music Festival based in Kyustendil, Bulgaria. 

Cook released his first recording in 2002 on the Novitas label.  Entitled Nachtstück, it is a recording of twelve Nocturnes by seven different composers including Chopin, Liszt, and Schumann.  Soon to be released are two recordings, one featuring Debussy’s Préludes for Piano and trio recording with longtime collaborators oboist Roger Roe and violist Michael Isaac Strauss.