Acclaimed pianist Ney Fialkow to perform at Covington Center
The Department of Music will present a guest recital by acclaimed pianist Ney Fialkow on Wednesday, February 13, 2019. This free performance is open to the public and will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Davis Performance Hall at the Covington Center. Fialkow is the winner of several piano competitions including the much-coveted Eldorado Music Prize in São Paulo. He is a professor in the music department at Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and balances his time teaching with a busy career as soloist and collaborative pianist. His recital appearances have captivated audiences in many distinguished concert halls in his country and abroad. Under sponsorship by the Brazilian Government, he holds a Master of Music from the New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts, as well as a Doctor of Musical Arts from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University.
Fialkow explores many styles and historical periods, and has premiered new works for piano in solo, chamber music and concerto genres. He made his debut at the age of 18 with the Porto Alegre Symphony Orchestra, under the late Camargo Guarnieri, and has appeared as soloist with prominent orchestras in Brazil and abroad.
A devoted chamber musician, Fialkow has collaborated extensively with a great number of internationally acclaimed musicians such as Carmelo de Los Santos, Viktor Uzur, Marcos Machado, Joel Quarrington, Yang Liu, and Alexander Bailey, among many others. In 2016 he performed in Paris at the Salle Cortot of the École Normale de Musique, appearing in a two-piano concert with the acclaimed Georgian pianist Guigla Katsarava.
As recording artist, Fialkow released the live CD performance “Sonatas Brasileiras” in collaboration with the acclaimed violinist Carmelo de los Santos, which received the Açoriano Prize for Best Classical CD in 2009. In 2006 he performed Brazilian chamber music with the Porto Alegre Trio, which was chosen to be among the few select chamber groups to present concerts in the Culture Cup Project sponsored by the Ministry of Culture of Brazil. In 2010 he was a soloist in the premiere of “Mahavidyas” by Brazilian composer Vagner Cunha, and performed in the CD recording of that work. Fialkow’s album “Metamorfora,” released in collaboration with double bassist Marcos Machado on the Blue Griffin label, was praised in Strad Magazine for the duo’s ‘fresh and lively rendition’ of “Beethoven’s Variations on a Theme” from Mozart’s Magic Flute. A second CD with bassist Marcos Machado, featuring works by Proto, Falla, Devreese, Korngold and Mozart, was released by Blue Griffin in 2018.