Biography Wikipedia
Wikipedia:
Olga Kern (Russian: Ольга Керн; born April 23, 1975) is a Russian classical pianist. Born as Olga Pushechnikova to a family of musicians with ties to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, she later adopted her mother's maiden name (Kern) professionally. She began studying piano with Evgeny Timakin at the Central Music School of Moscow when she was five.
She continued with Sergei Dorensky at the Moscow Conservatory, where she also pursued her postgraduate studies. She also studied with Boris Petrushansky at the Accademia Pianistica "Incontri col Maestro" in Imola.
Personal life
She was married in 1997 and had a son the following year. She and her husband divorced soon after.
Awards and titles
Kern won her first international competition at the age of eleven, and she has achieved first prize in others since then, including the first Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition at seventeen. She is a laureate of eleven international competitions, a recipient of an honorary scholarship from the former President of Russia Boris Yeltsin, and is part of Russia's International Academy of Arts. In June 2001, she became the first woman in over thirty years to receive the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Gold Medal in the Eleventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
Performing and recording career
Kern has performed in such locations as the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Symphony Hall in Osaka, La Scala, Salle Cortot in Paris, and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She has also performed as a soloist with the Bolshoi Theater, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, St. Petersburg Symphony, Russian National Orchestra, China Symphony, Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra, Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, La Scala Philharmonic Orchestra, Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, Torino Symphony, Bear Valley Music Festival Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Cape Town Symphony Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony and Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Kern records exclusively for Harmonia Mundi USA.