Russian piano master to perform at Southeast

Local audiences will have two chances to see a performance by Valentina Igoshina, a critically acclaimed Russian piano virtuosa.

Valentina will perform a special benefit concert at 3 p.m. Sunday in the Shuck Music Recital Hall to raise money to replace aging musical instruments used by university students.

She will take the stage of the Bedell Performance Hall at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday with the Southeast Missouri Symphony Orchestra for a program titled "Piano Spectacular" -- a night Southeast Orchestra conductor Sara Edgerton expects to be memorable.

Playing Grieg's "Concerto in A Minor," Igoshina will reinforce the impressions she made during a recital here about a year and a half ago, Edgerton said.

"She played so beautifully [in 2012] and expressively that everyone in the audience was enchanted," Edgerton said. "She is a technically gifted pianist who plays with extreme accuracy and tremendous emotion. The music just sings, coming out of her piano."

Tickets for Sunday's benefit concert are $25; Igoshina will play duets with violinist Brandon Christensen as part of the River Campus's Sundays at Three series in the 180-seat Shuck Music Recital Hall, with the money going to replace aging musical instruments, a news release said.

"We hope to raise enough funds Sunday to purchase a new classroom piano," Angie Wilson, Southeast Missouri University Foundation development director, said in an email to the Southeast Missourian.

"Our instrument initiative, You Are the Music, is going well. We have been fortunate to purchase several pianos along with brass and string instruments. We have also benefited from the donations of gently used instruments from ... individuals," Wilson said.

Admission is $16 and $19 for the 65-member orchestra's Tuesday's performance of Beethoven's "Pastoral" Symphony No. 6 and Igoshina's rendition of the Edvard Grieg composition, which Edgerton said "is from the romantic period of the 19th century and full of beautiful melodies."

The program includes selected movements of Grieg's "Peer Gynt Suite," including the well-known movement "In the Hall of the Mountain King."

"It's a famous piece that Valentina knows very well," the conductor said, adding that Igoshina's Tuesday performance in the Bedell will last about an hour. "It is kind of unusual for us to host a Russian pianist. They have wonderful training and really gifted pianists, and she is certainly one of them.

"I encourage everyone to come and see her. She is what we call a really top-level performer, and we don't get a chance to hear people of that caliber very often," Edgerton said.

Tickets for both shows may be bought at the River Campus box office in the Cultural Arts Center at 518 S. Fountain St. They also may be obtained by calling 651-2265 or online at RiverCampusEvents.com.

Igoshina is a 35-year-old native of Bryansk, Russia, who divides her time between her homeland and Giverny, France, where she lives with her husband and daughter when she's not on tour, a news release said.

She began her formal musical education in Moscow, about 240 miles northeast of Bryansk, at age 11. At 14, she won the Artur Rubenstein Piano Competition in Poland. After graduating from the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow and winning the Rachmaninoff Piano Competition there in 1997, Igoshina started her professional career with concerts and recitals in Switzerland, France, Italy, Great Britain and Portugal.

She recently performed with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, the Santiago Orchestra in Chile, Galicia Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Spain, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra in Germany.

Her recognition has been heightened by a YouTube video of her playing "Fantasie Impromptu," which has attracted more than 5 million views.