A grand event

Bravo attends Carolina’s Southeastern Piano Festival.

By Larry Wood

Outside, it’s a white-hot summer’s day with the kind of heat that shimmers off the asphalt. But in a second-floor studio of the School of Music, Marina Lomazov is telling her piano student to imagine how the snow-covered fields of Russia influenced Tchaikovsky when he composed the concerto the student is performing. Personal instruction is a key component of Carolina’s Southeastern Piano Festival. Since its beginning in 2003, piano students have flocked to Carolina for an intensive week of study with School of Music piano faculty and to listen and learn from some of the best pianists in the world who perform as guest artists. As a gift to the community, all of the festival’s events are open to the public.

“The Southeastern Piano Festival is a nationally recognized event for high school students and for the community,” said Lomazov, an assistant professor of piano and the festival’s founder and director. “The festival highlights our piano program, our faculty, the School of Music, and the University. It provides a spectacular opportunity for the community to hear world-class artists who usually perform only in larger cities such as Atlanta or Washington.”

The students—20 young pianists in grades 8 through 12—are devoted to the piano, too. Piano faculty choose the participants through a blind audition. Many of the students live in the Southeast, but the festival has had students from New York and inquiries from as far away as England.

“Because of the quality of our students and the guest artists we invite, word is spreading, and we’re beginning to enjoy a very high national reputation,” Lomazov said.

During the festival, students have access to private practice rooms, each with a grand piano, where they practice from 9 a.m. to noon every morning. After lunch, individual and group lessons, which are open to the public, begin. Faculty help their students—some of them dressed in shorts, sneakers, and camouflage caps—polish their performances and hone their skills.

After lessons, students attend a lecture, which Lomazov works to make interesting and relevant. Last year, each student had the opportunity to perform on a piano owned by Vladimir Horowitz, considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century. In the evenings, students take a break from lessons and practice to enjoy performances by guest artists. The festival opens on Sunday night with Piano Fireworks, a special concert featuring the School of Music’s piano faculty.

Olga Kern, gold medalist at the XI Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, will be this year’s guest artist, interacting with students all week and performing two concerts: an intimate solo performance in the School of Music’s Recital Hall and a concert performance with the Conductor’s Institute of South Carolina Orchestra in the Koger Center

“She’s one of the hottest young stars right now on the concert circuit,” Lomazov said. “She has a great personal story and will be a real role model for our students. The community will want to see her performance, too, because she’s electrifying. Having a star of Kern’s caliber is a sign that the festival has become established as part of the fabric of the cultural life of Columbia.” On Friday, most of the students compete in the Arthur Fraser Concerto Competition, a collaboration with the S.C. Philharmonic. The top three winners perform a movement of their concertos with the orchestra later in the year. As many as 20 percent of the students who have attended the festival enroll at Carolina.

“I have seven alumni in my studio alone, and my colleagues have others,” Lomazov said. “They come to the festival; they love the faculty; they love the school; and they get to interact with our students who help with the festival. It’s a demanding program, a very challenging program, but it’s also very rewarding. Most of the students don’t want to leave. Leave on a high note, that’s what I always say.”