For Chopin Lovers in Tampa/St. Pete Chopin Project Indulges Fans and Followers with 2020 Concert Series
What began as one concert in one city in 2008, The Chopin Project has grown and evolved into a worldwide community of music fans, students, and scholars – from the most casual to the most deeply committed. It now features a robust and growing series of live concerts from November through April each year with performances in Tampa/St. Pete, Sarasota and newly added Asheville, NC.
The 2019-2020 Concert Series continues with new and returning exceptionally talented pianists in Tampa/St. Pete. The concerts are designed to showcase the scope and breadth of Fryderyk Chopin’s works, as well as those of his musical forebears, contemporaries and successors.
As part of The Chopin Project’s Community Outreach Program, students may attend any performance free of charge. The Chopin Project is also hosting three free concerts at Hudson Regional Library. These outreach efforts along with the regular concert program series offers the opportunity for all ages and levels of interest to experience and indulge in the music composed by Chopin and other masters.
Morning and afternoon concerts are approximately one hour in length, evening performances approximately 1.5 hours.
For ticket or other information visit: chopinproject.com or call 813.966.1933
2020 Tampa/St. Pete Concert Series Schedule
January Concerts
“Chasing Chopin” | Pianist Renana Gutman
Pianist Renana Gutman will be “Chasing Chopin” as she presents works by the Polish master and composers he influenced including Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, Alexander Scriabin and others, with elegant commentary that weaves their music and their stories.
Monday, January 13
The Palladium Theatre
253 5th Avenue North
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
Cost: $30 general admission or four concert series for $100
727-822-3590
7:30 p.m.
Friday, January 24
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
501 S. Dale Mabry Hwy
Tampa, FL 33609
Cost: Free | Donations welcome
813-877-3105
7:00 p.m.
Saturday, January 25
Center for the Arts at Wesley Chapel
30651 Wells Road
Wesley Chapel, FL 33545
813-794-8772
1:30 p.m.
Cost: Free | All County Student Outreach Program
Saturday, January 25
Hudson Regional Library
8012 Library Road
Hudson, FL 34667
727-861-3040
Cost: Free | Donations welcome
3:00 p.m.
About the Artist:
Praised by The New York Times for her “passionate and insightful” playing, Israel native Renana Gutman has performed across four continents as an orchestral soloist, recitalist, and collaborative artist, performing at such notable venues as The Louvre Museum, Grenoble Museum, Carnegie Recital Hall and St. Petersburg’s Philharmonia in Russia, to name a few. She was a founding member of the award-winning piano trio “Terzetto,” with violinist Diana Cohen and cellist Tanya Ell. The trio performed regularly in festivals and concerts across North America from 2007-2011.
As a pedagogue, Renana joined the piano faculty of Boston’s Longy School of Music of Bard College in 2019. She had previously been on the piano faculty of the Yehudi Menuhin Music School in the UK, and of Bard Pre-College and the 92nd Street Y in New York City. She also plays an active role in the NY Chapter of Music for Food, a musician-led initiative for local hunger relief. She is also featured playing Chopin’s Etudes, Opus 25 on Chopin Project’s most recent CD, titled “Rarities & Favorites, Vol. 4.”
March Concert
Sunday, March 22
“Polonaise-Fantasie: The Story of a Pianist” | Pianist Inna Faliks
Making her West Coast of Florida debut, Pianist Inna Faliks shares a hybrid of a piano recital and an autobiographical monologue, one she considers to be the most personal project she has ever done. “It is my hope that, in sharing my story, I offer audiences a glimpse into the life of a performing musician, as well as my own journey, one that has enabled me to become the artist I am today.”
The Palladium Theatre
253 5th Avenue North
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
Cost: $30 general admission or four concert series for $100
727-822-3590
7:30 p.m.
About the Artist:
“Adventurous and passionate” (The New Yorker) Ukrainian-born American pianist Inna Faliks has established herself as one of the most exciting, committed, communicative and poetic artists of her generation. A Yamaha Artist and current professor and head of piano UCLA, Faliks has made a name for herself through her commanding performances of standard piano repertoire that have taken her around the world to some of the most esteemed venues.
Faliks’ genre-bending interdisciplinary projects and inquisitive work with contemporary composers has earned her additional acclaim from The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, Lucid Culture and Audiophile Audition . Faliks is also the founder and curator of the award-winning poetry-music series Music/Words, creating performances in collaboration with distinguished poets as well as conducting masterclasses and traveling to Artist Residencies in major conservatories and universities around the world.
April & May Concerts
“An Evening of Chopin, Schumann & Liszt” | Pianist Igor Lovchinsky
Having made his West Coast Florida debut in 2019, Igor Lovchinsky returns to celebrate the lives and legacies of Chopin, Schumann and Liszt, all of whom were born within one year of each other, 210 years ago. Lovchinsky has been hailed by Gramophone as a “star of the future” and acclaimed by Germany’s Piano Magazine for the “elegance and rapturous beauty” of his music making.
Saturday, April 25
Hudson Regional Library
8012 Library Road
Hudson, FL 34667
727-861-3040
Cost: Free | Donations welcome
3:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 25
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
501 S. Dale Mabry Hwy
Tampa, FL 33609
813-877-3105
Cost: Free | Donations welcome
7:00 p.m.
Wednesday, May 6
The Palladium Theatre
253 5th Avenue North
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
Cost: $30 general admission or four concert series for $100
727-822-3590
7:30 p.m.
About the Artist:
Born in Kazan, Russia in 1984, Igor Lovchinsky began playing the piano at the age of two. Very quickly, he showed extraordinary promise – not only as a pianist, but also as a composer and improviser and by the age of four was already playing entire recitals for his friends and family. In 1989, he entered the Kazan Special Music School for Gifted Children and after coming to the U.S. in 1994, garnered first prizes at the Eastman International Piano Competition and the Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Piano Competition.
Lovchinsky has performed internationally at the National Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw, the American Embassy in Beijing, and the Rosza Centre in Calgary. Recent tours have included performances in Poland, Lithuania, and Brazil. In addition to his Bachelor’s degree from the Juilliard School and a Master’s degree from the New England Conservatory in Boston, Lovchinsky also holds a PhD in Physics from Harvard University.
Photos from The Chopin Project, Renana Gutman photo from Carlos Andres Duenas