Violinist Masha Lakisova and her mother, pianist Lyudmila Lakisova, join us for a live Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert live from the Cultural Center with music of Mozart, Chausson, Mayer, and Piazzolla.
Biography courtesy of IMF Chicago.
At just nineteen, Chicago violinist Masha Lakisova is fast becoming one of the rising stars of her generation. She has appeared as a soloist with orchestras worldwide such as Kremerata Baltica, HEMU, Fox Valley Symphony Orchestra, Skokie Valley Symphony Orchestra, and Lake Forest Symphony.
She has taken top prizes at prestigious competitions such as the Stulberg, Klein, Tibor Junior, and Andrea Postacchini International Competitions, National YoungArts, and the Walgreens National Concerto Competition. As a member of string quartets at Midwest Young Artists Conservatory, Masha won two consecutive Gold Medals at the Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition. She was featured numerous times on NPR’s “From the Top,” where she received the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award.
Masha currently studies with Miriam Fried at New England Conservatory where she is a recipient of the Dean’s Scholarship. She graduated from Julliard Pre-College where she studied with Itzhak Perlman and Li Lin, and she has also previously been a student of Grigory Kalinovsky, Drew Lecher, and Larisa Zhizhin. Masha has taken lessons and masterclasses with such prominent virtuosi as Ana Chumachenko, Anne Sophie Mutter, Pinchas Zukerman, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Paul Huang, and Augustin Hadelich. She has collaborated with Vadim Gluzman, Pavel Vernikov, Svetlin Roussev, and Ilya Kaler.
Masha has been involved with many prestigious summer music festivals. In 2015, she attended the Heifetz Music Institute and has been a student at the Perlman Music Program since 2016.
Miss Lakisova is the proud recipient of a magnificent violin by Giovanni Francesco Pressenda, Turin, 1845 on loan from The Stradivari Society of Chicago thanks to the generosity of her patron, Edward Manzo.
Lyudmila Lakisova graduated from the School of Music for Gifted Children, affiliated with the Belorussian State Conservatory of Music, receiving her Bachelor’s degree in 1988. She earned her Master’s Degree in Piano Performance, Pedagogy, and Chamber Music in 1993 with a Ph.D in Piano Accompaniment in 1995, both from the Belorussian State Conservatory of Music in Minsk.
In 1989, she became a recital pianist and accompanist for the Belorussian State Philharmonic Chamber Choir and performed with the Belorussian State Symphony. Lyudmila has been a featured soloist and ensemble member with many orchestras in the Chicago area, including Wheaton Symphony, West Suburban Symphony, Camerata Chicago, and the Landolfi Piano Trio. She has performed in many well-known venues, such as Bennett Gordon Hall at Ravinia and Carnegie Hall in New York. Lyudmila has also given performances in the Steinway Society Concert series and Stradivari Society.
In previous years, she toured extensively in England with violinist Drostan Hall and on the continents of Africa and Asia with Trio Chicago & Friends. She has also collaborated with violinists such as Yossif Ivanof, Olga Kaler, and Julian Rachlin.
As an accompanist and collabarative pianist, Lyudmila provides her skills to the students of Chicago’s well known violin and piano teachers. Lyudmila is also a chamber music coach at Midwest Young Artists Conservatory in Highwood, Illinois and a rehearsal pianist for the Chicago Master Singers.