Natasha Kislenko
Lecturer
Accompanying, piano
Music Building #0301
Pianist Natasha (Natalia) Kislenko has concertized extensively as a soloist and a chamber musician throughout Russia, Europe and the United States. Critics praise her “great artistry,” “perfect technique,” and “extraordinary richness of nuance and color.”
Born in Moscow, Russia, Ms. Kislenko began piano studies when she was six, gave her first solo Moscow recital at fourteen, and appeared with several symphony orchestras while still in the Special Music School for Gifted Children of the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory. Her graduate performance degree is from the famed Moscow Conservatory (1994), where she majored in Piano Performance, Accompanying, and Teaching. Averaging forty solo recitals a year, she toured Russia, the other Republics of the former USSR, and Germany. International awards include a Third (1992) and a Second (1995) prize at the “J. S. Bach” competition in Saarbrücken, Germany, and various prizes in piano competitions in France, Slovak Republic, Italy and Portugal. Summer studies at the famed Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy, brought its highest award: the Diploma di Honore.
Ms. Kislenko moved to the USA in 1995 to study with the world-renowned Spanish pianist Joaquín Achúcarro at the Meadows School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, and earn another Masters Degree. For her Doctorate in Piano Performance she studied with the distinguished American pianist Gilbert Kalish at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, graduating in 2004. Concentrating on broadening her solo and collaborative piano repertoire, she became particularly interested in twentieth-century music.
She made her Carnegie Hall solo recital debut in 1996 at Weill Recital hall, after taking Grand Prix in the Missouri Southern International Piano Competition at Joplin. Winning the Texas Steinway Society Career Development Award resulted in several Dallas area recitals. Subsequent international recitals included an all-Bach program at the festival “J. S. Bach-Tage” in Germany. Natasha’s interest in musical collaboration led to summers with the Sarasota (FL) Music Festival and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, where she was a fellowship student of Anne Epperson.
Natasha has had unique and broad experience in the field of music. She collaborated with many famed artists including Sarah Chang, Zvi Zeitlin, James Buswell, Theodore Kuchar, and Gary Gray, to name a few. She is equally at home performing solo and collaborative recitals, chamber music concerts, and playing piano in the orchestra. She also enjoys coaching singers in the opera productions and teaching piano in the academic environment.
Dr. Kislenko served as a full-time collaborative pianist and a piano studio instructor at the Department of Music, California State University, Fresno, for five years. In the summers, she has been a collaborative piano faculty member at the Meadowmount School of Music, NY (2003) and the Music Academy of the West (2004-present).
