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OBERLIN CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC VIOLIN STUDENT JULIA SAKHAROVA WINS KOUSSEVITZKY COMPETITION
MAY 3, 2002--Violinist Julia Sakharova, a student of Professor of Violin Milan Vitek at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College, has won first prize in the Musicians Club of New York's 47th Olga Koussevitzky Competition for Strings, held at the National Arts Club in New York City April 4, 5, and 8. She brought home $2,500 and instructions to leave room on her calendar for a New York recital in fall 2002.
Sakharova, who is 22 years old and a native of Zheleznovodsk, Russia, is a junior violin performance major at Oberlin. She is concertmaster of the Oberlin Orchestra and a member of the Erato Quartet, which won the 2001 Coleman-Barstow Award for Strings.
"Sakharova gave a wonderful performance," says Virginia Benz Anderer, chairman of the Koussevitzky Competition. "The judges were unanimous in their decision, which took about 15 seconds to make."
Twenty-two string musicians began the competition; by the final round seven remained. The judges for the final round were violinists Anahid Ajemian, Artur Shtilman, and Gerald Tarack and cellist Kermit Moore.
For the first round and in the finals, Sakharova performed the same program: the Adagio from J.S. Bach's Sonata in G-minor, No. 1; Mozart's Sonata in G-Major, K. 301; the first movement from Strauss' Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 18; and Eugene YsaÌe's Sonata for Violin Solo, Op. 27, No. 6. Pianist Evan Solomon of New York City was her accompanist.
Sakharova made her first recording, Russian Violin School, in 1997 on the Sony label. In 2001 she helped launch the Tavros record label with a recording of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Elegiaque Piano Trios.
In 1998 Sakharova made her solo debut with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. In 1999, upon graduating from the Central Special Music School, she was accepted into the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. She has participated in summer music festivals at Colmar in France, Baden-Baden in Germany, Oberlin at Casalmaggiore in Italy, the Weathersfield Music Festival in Vermont, and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California. This year she will attend Kneisel Hall in Maine and the Verbier Festival in Switzerland.
While at Oberlin, Sakharova has been a finalist in the National Solo Competition sponsored by the Association of String Teachers of America and she appeared as soloist with the Oberlin Orchestra under the baton of composer John Williams in a concert held at the Getty Center in Los Angeles.
Olga Koussevitzky was the second wife of famed conductor Serge Koussevitzky (1874¨1951). A past president of the Musicians Club of New York, she endowed the competition, which was first held in 1955 and which features different instruments from year to year. The next Olga Koussevitzky Competition, for winds, takes place in spring 2003. The competition will feature piano in 2004, voice in 2005, and strings again in 2006.
Past winners of the Olga Koussevitzky Competition include violist Irene Breslau; violinist Charles Castleman; violinist Laura Hamilton (associate concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra); cellist Chui-Yee Lee; violist Paul Neubauer; soprano Young Ok Shin; and cellist Fred Slatkin (brother of conductor Leonard Slatkin).
The Oberlin Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College, founded in 1865, is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States, and the only major music school in the country linked with a preeminent college of arts and sciences.
For more information, please visit the Oberlin Conservatory page.
Media Contact: Marci Janas
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