Itamar Zorman is one of the most soulful, evocative artists of his generation, distinguished by his emotionally gripping performances and gift for musical storytelling. Since his emergence with the top prize at the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition, he has wowed audiences all over the world with breathtaking style, causing one critic to declare him a “young badass who’s not afraid of anything.” His “youthful intensity” and “achingly beautiful” sound shine through in every performance, earning him the title of the “virtuoso of emotions. Mr. Zorman will perform in recital with pianist Liza Stepanova at the 2020 Lyra Music Festival.
Smith College | Sage Hall
Tickets $25
Festival Pass $75 (Entrance to all 2020 Lyra Music Festival Events)
Program: TBA
The recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust award, Itamar Zorman was also joint winner of the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition. Other competition successes include first prize at the 2010 International Violin Competition of Freiburg and the Juilliard Berg Concerto Competition in April 2010.
As a soloist, Itamar Zorman has appeared with, among others, the American Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, Het Gelders Orkest in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Tokyo Symphony in Japan’s Suntory Hall, as well as the Jerusalem Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Haifa Symphony, Polish Radio Chamber Orchestra, Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim, Philharmonie Baden Baden, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, and the Russian State Symphony Orchestra “Novaya Rossiya. In November 2014 he made his Italian debut at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo playing the Beethoven concerto with Daniel Oren, and in January 2015, his Korean debut with the KBS symphony Orchestra and Yoel Levi.
The 2015-16 season includes Itamar Zorman’s debut with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse conducted by Joseph Swensen, a tour of Brazil with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and Frédéric Chaslin and concerto appearances in Italy at the Mito Settembre Musica Festival in Turin and Teatro Filarmonico di Verona with the Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestra and Gintaras Rinkevicius. Other concerto appearances include the Santa Fe Symphony and Pennsylvania Center Orchestras in the USA, the Pan Asia Symphony in Hong Kong, the Vojvodina Symphony Orchestra in Serbia and the Israeli Kibbutz Orchestra. In January 2016, at the invitation of Mitsuko Uchida, he lead the Mahler Chamber Orchestra on a European tour of Mozart concerti. A regular at the Marlboro Music Festival, Itamar Zorman has also appeared at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, the Verbier Festival, the Louvre recital series in Paris, the Kronberg Academy Festival and the Copenhagen Summer Festival. In November 2014, he gave his Carnegie Hall recital debut, as part of the ‘Distinctive Debuts’ series in Weill Recital Hall. Itamar Zorman has also recently given recitals in the Laeiszhalle Hamburg, the HR-Sendesaal Frankfurt and the Kolarac Hall in Belgrade.
His first solo CD recording, entitled ‘Portrait’, and featuring works by Messiaen, Schubert, Chausson, Hindemith and Brahms was released in Europe in August 2014 and the US in February 2015) by Profil - Editions Günther Hänssler.
As a chamber musician, Zorman has appeared at the Lincoln Center, Zankel and Weill Recital Halls in Carnegie Hall, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. He is a founding member of the Israeli Chamber Project, and a member of the Lysander Piano Trio, with which he won the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Competition, the Grand Prize in the 2011 Coleman Chamber Music Competition, 1st prize in the 2011 Arriaga Competition, and a bronze medal in the 2010 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.
Itamar Zorman is a recipient of scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, and has taken part in numerous master classes around the world, working with Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zuckerman, Shlomo Mintz, Ida Handel and Ivry
Born in Tel-Aviv in 1985 to a family of musicians, Itamar Zorman began his violin studies at the age of six with Saly Bockel at the Israeli Conservatory of Music in Tel-Aviv. He graduated in 2003 and continued his studies with Professor David Chen and Nava Milo. He received his Bachelor of Music from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance as a student of Hagai Shaham. He received his Master's of Music from The Juilliard School in 2009, where he studied with Robert Mann and Sylvia Rosenberg, and received an Artist Diploma from Manhattan School of Music in 2010, and an Artist Diploma from Julliard in 2012, studying with Ms. Rosenberg. He later Continued his studies with Christian Tetzlaff and Mauricio Fuks at The Kronberg Academy.
Itamar Zorman plays on a 1734 Guarneri Del Jesù from the collection of Yehuda Zisapel.
Praised by The New York Times for her “thoughtful musicality” and “fleet-fingered panache,” Liza Stepanova is in demand as a soloist, collaborator, and educator. She has performed extensively in Europe, most recently, as a soloist with the Southwest-German Philharmonic and in chamber music performances at the Berlin Museum of Musical Instruments and Belgrade’s Kolarac Hall. In the United States, she has appeared in Weill and Zankel Recital Halls at Carnegie; Alice Tully Hall, Merkin and Steinway halls in New York City; at the Kennedy Center and The Smithsonian in Washington, DC; and live on WQXR New York, WFMT Chicago, and WETA Washington. Stepanova has twice been a soloist with the Juilliard Orchestra led by James DePreist and Nicholas McGegan and was a top prizewinner at the Liszt-Garrison, Juilliard Concerto, Steinway, and Ettlingen competitions.
As a member of the Lysander Piano Trio, she won the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Competition and received the Grand Prize at the 2011 Coleman Competition. The Trio gave its Kaufman Center and Weill Hall recital debuts in 2014 to enthusiastic reviews, has commissioned two world premieres, and recently released its debut CD After A Dream, which garnered positive reviews from The New York Times’s Classical Playlist, WQXR, and Minnesota Public Radio.
The 2017-2018 season will see the release of Stepanova’s first solo piano CD, recorded in New York City with Grammy Award-winning producer Adam Abeshouse. The recording features music from Bach to Ligeti that was inspired by visual art. Other season highlights include an Albany Records release featuring world premiere recordings of chamber music by composer Tom Cipullo, solo recitals in Atlanta, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and New York City, a residency at the University of North Texas, and chamber music performances at the Resonant Bodies Festival in New York City, Princeton University Summer Concerts, and at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in Palm Beach.
Stepanova has performed as a soloist and chamber musician at international festivals at Castleton, La Jolla, Music@Menlo, Mostly Mozart, Copenhagen (Denmark), and Davos (Switzerland), where she had opportunities to collaborate with leading artists including violinist Cho-Liang Lin, violist James Dunham, clarinetist Charles Neidich, soprano Lucy Shelton, mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer and members of the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and the Atlanta Symphony. Deeply committed to new music, she has premiered works by Jennifer Higdon and Libby Larsen and worked with composers William Bolcom, Gabriela Lena Frank, and John Harbison.
Liza Stepanova studied art song collaboration with Wolfram Rieger in Berlin and was invited by the late Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau to perform in several of his master classes including the Hugo-Wolf-Tage festival in Austria. Since 2010, Stepanova has been on the faculty at SongFest at The Colburn School in Los Angeles and also served as the festival’s Associate Artistic Director and Piano Program Director for two years.
Stepanova received her DMA from The Juilliard School with a Richard F. French Award for outstanding doctoral work. Previously a graduate of the Hanns Eisler Academy in Berlin, Germany, she studied with Joseph Kalichstein, Seymour Lipkin, Jerome Lowenthal, and George Sava, and performed in master classes for Alfred Brendel, Daniel Barenboim and András Schiff. Following teaching positions at The Juilliard School and Smith College, she is currently an assistant professor of piano at the University of Georgia, Hugh Hodgson School of Music.