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"TIGRESS OF THE KEYBOARD"
virtuosity since the earliest days of this compelling artist's
career. "Shattering," "magnificent," "dazzling," "splendid" are
words critics have used the world over to describe Ilana Vered
on the concert stage. Renowned for the white-hot intensity of her
performances, Ms. Vered now comes before her public as a
musician whose art has achieved a rare balance between
passion and intellect, temperament and reflection.
Ms. Vered, who has repeatedly demonstrated sovereign musical
and technical command over some forty-five concertos--from
Bach to Berg--has already recorded for the London label highly
lauded versions of the concertos of Mozart, Chopin, Brahms,
Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninov. She has committed to disc the
complete set of Beethoven's five piano concertos with the
Warsaw Philharmonic under the baton of Kazimierz Kord,
released in late 1993 by the ProArte label, represent the
culmination of Ms. Vered's long association with the Beethoven
concertos--works she has always regarded as the cornerstone of
the concerto repertoire. "I have lived with these great concertos
for many years, and it was a thrill for me finally to record them,"
Ms. Vered asserts. "I am always struck by the way the wonderful
slow movements of these works proceed out of a kind of
all-knowing inner necessity--like a reflective soul caught
between the magnificent 'rubble' of the outer movements, in
which Beethoven seems to topple huge blocks of sound in a
defiant affirmation of joy and humanity."
In addition to her distinguished series of recordings for the
London label including: The Brahms No. 2 piano concert, The two
popular Mozert piano concerti No. 2 and No. 23, The
Rachmaninov Paoanini variations and the No. 2 concertos, Ms.
Vered has to her credit a highly-praised version of the complete
Chopin Etudes, Opp. 10 and 25, a brilliant recording of the
complete Moszkowski Etudes, both for Connoir Records, and
Connoisseur Records has release a disc entitled "25 Virtuoso
Etudes" on which Ms. Vered offers new readings of concert
etudes by Chopin, Schumann, Paganini-Liszt, and Debussy.
Ms. Vered began playing the piano at the age of three, and later
attended the Paris Conservatory where she studied with the
eminent pianist Vlado Perlemuter. Born in Israel, She graduated
from the Paris Conservatory at fifteen, and completed her
studies at the Juilliard School in New York City under the
tutorship of Rosina Lhevinne, Nadia Reisenberg, and Aube
Tzerko. She made her debut as one of the first winners of the
Young Concert Artists International Competition.
Pavarotti, Richard Thomas, and his
wife Alma
Ms. Vered has been heard in recital in virtually all of the music
centers of the world, and has been engaged and re-engaged as
soloist with the leading orchestras of our time: the New York
Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra,
the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the San
Francisco Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the London
Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, and Philharmonia, the
Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, the Orchestre de la Suisse
Romande, the Japan NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Munich
Philharmonic, and the Israel Philharmonic. She has performed as
soloist under the batons of most of the world's finest conductors,
including Stokowski, Solti, Mehta, Kempe, Kondrashin, Tilson
Thomas, de Waart, Slatkin, Comissiona, Conlon, Davis, Sanderling,
Cassadesus, Bertini, Weller, Sawalich, Atzmon, Leppard, rodan,
Judd, Foster, Bamert, Janson and Vanska. A regular participant in
summer festivals, Ms. Vered has made appearances at the Mostly
Mozart Festival in New York, Chicago's Ravinia Festival,
Tanglewood, Caramoor, Cleveland's Blossom Festival, the
Meadow-brooks Festival in Detroit, and at Los Angeles' Hollywood
Bowl.
Ms. Vered is a chamber musician of distinction and has appeared
with important chamber ensembles throughout the world. She is
noted particularly for her frequent performances with the Tokyo
String Quartet. A highlight of this collaboration was Ms. Vered's
world premiere performance with the ensemble of Ezra
Laderman's Piano Quintet at the Metropolitan Museum in New York
City. This work, which was written for Ms. Vered and the Tokyo
String Quartet, was later recorded by them for the RCA label.
During the Hampton Summerfest and the Rutgers Summerfest
Ilana Vered performed the five Beethoven concertos in one event.
During the 1993/94 season, Ms. Vered performed a Beethoven
cycle of the complete sonatas and variations for piano and cello,
with cellist Sharon Robinson, in Washington, D.C., Santa Fe, New
York City, and other major musical centers throughout the United
States. Ms. Vered, who has a devoted following in the Far East,
appeared in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and
toured the major cities of Japan numerous times with the NHK
Symphony Orchestra.
including appearances on The Today Show, Good Morning
America, and the Merv Griffin Show, as well as guest performances
on the PBS network in the United states and the BBC in the United
Kingdom. In collaboration with the noted Swiss movie producer
Adrian Marthaler, Ms. Vered has made a series of unusual
feature-length films entitled "Looking at Music," which was telecast
by the BBC, and the Arts and Entertainment and Bravo cable
networks. These films are being distributed as home videos in the
U.S. By BMG.
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