Biorgraphy:

Recently named a 2019-2020 Young Artist in Residence of NPR’s Performance Today, Russian-American pianist Aleksandra Kasman is rapidly establishing an international solo career with engagements across the USA, Italy, Russia, Ukraine, France, and Japan. She is the First Prize and Audience Award winner of the 2017 Premio Roberto Melini International Competition, and has won first prizes at the NFMC National Collegiate Piano Competition, High Point University Inaugural Piano Competition, and IKIF’s 2015 Dorothy Mackenzie Awards. Additional awards include top prizes at the Seattle International Piano Competition, Wideman International Piano Competition, International Competition for Young Pianists in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz, American Prize Competition, and Arthur Fraser International Piano Competition.

Ms. Kasman has appeared in concert at the invitation of the International Keyboard Institute and Festival, Southeastern Piano Festival, PianoCity Milano, International Academy of Music, Piano Evenings with David Dubal, L’Altra Stagione, Busan International Music Academy, and International Keyboard Odyssiad and Festival, and has given recitals at Steinway Hall, Yamaha Ginza Hall, and Salle Cortot. Ms. Kasman’s most recent international tour featured eleven solo recitals across Italy, where her playing was praised by the press for its “rock solid technique” and “singing every sentence with an expressive logic of extraordinary maturity” (Buongiorno Südtirol).

Ms. Kasman made her concerto debut at age thirteen with the Symphonic Orchestra of the National Philharmonic of Ukraine and the Alabama Symphony. She has worked extensively with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, performing seven different concertos with the ensemble. An avid performer of contemporary music, Kasman has premiered works by Nathan Daughtrey, Zachary Detrick, and Marc Migo, recently performing Migo’s Double Concerto for Piano and Violin with the Juilliard Orchestra in Alice Tully Hall.

Born into a musical family in Moscow, Ms. Kasman grew up in Vestavia Hills, AL, where she studied piano with her father and later duo partner Yakov Kasman. Together they have performed across the USA, Russia, and South Korea. Ms. Kasman earned her Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude from the University of Alabama at Birmingham under the tutelage of Yakov Kasman. Ms. Kasman holds an M.M. degree from Juilliard, where she studied with Robert McDonald, and is currently a doctoral student at the University of Michigan in the studio of Logan Skelton.

A dedicated music educator herself, Ms. Kasman holds a PianoArts Artist-in-Residence Fellowship in Wisconsin. In 2020 she returns to Milwaukee for a fifth teaching and performing tour. Ms. Kasman has taught master classes at Lee University and the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. She was previously a Teaching Fellow in keyboard studies and class piano at Juilliard, as well as the Gluck Community Service Performance Fellowship. Her private students are winners of local and state piano competitions

Concerto Repertoire:

J. Haydn, Piano Concerto in D Major, Hob. XVIII/11

W. A. Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488

L. van Beethoven, Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58

F. Chopin, Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 11

F. Chopin, Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor, Op. 21

J. Brahms, Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat Major, Op. 83 

P. Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No. 1 in B Flat Minor, Op. 23

C. Saint-Saens, "Carnival of the Animals" for two pianos and orchestra

S. Rachmaninoff, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

S. Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30

B. Bartok, Piano Concerto No. 3 in E Major

S. Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No.1 in D flat Major, Op. 10