December 14, 2019 – Daniel Tselyakov
Dear Music-lover,
At Virtuosi Concerts, we specialize in virtuosi!
Over the last few years, we’ve also become a cooking pot for emerging Manitoba artists.
DANIEL TSELYAKOV is a case in point. At age 26, his upcoming concert with us is the fourth time he will be a part of the Virtuosi Concerts series – this time as the main star! You last saw him at our gala 25th anniversary concert where he was the designated Young Artist opening for his teacher, Angela Cheng. (He played Kapustin’s virtuosic Jazz Piano Variations, a piece which later won him the Special Award at the San José International Piano Competition in 2019.)
Daniel comes from a musical family and his father, Alexander Tselyakov has performed frequently with us over the past 22 years, to great acclaim.
Daniel is now completing his doctorate at the University of Utah, He has studied with Michael Kim and Angela Cheng and has also taken master classes with many great pianists whose names you would recognize, such as Marc-André Hamelin, André Laplante, Jamie Parker, and the Cliburn gold winner Olga Kern. In 2019, he won the MTNA-Steinway Young Artist Piano Competition and was a distinguished laureate of Italy’s International Livorno Piano Competition. For almost a decade, he has served as co-artistic director and performer at the Clear Lake Chamber Music Festival.
We asked Daniel about his artistic vision for this concert program which reflects his Russian heritage and more. Here is what he wrote:
"I will begin with a Bach Prelude and Fugue in G major, which for me is reminiscent of my second Virtuosi concert where I was part of a 4-piano ensemble playing Bach Concerti with my father along with my teacher Michael Kim and his wife Kyung Kim. This opening piece also reflects the focus of my doctoral dissertation work on Bach's tuning system - which was not "Equal-Temperament", surprisingly.
Mozart’s Piano Quartet in E flat major is one of my favourite works. It is quite remarkable that Mozart was the first to explore the piano quartet genre. Mozart did not see the piano quartet in the same light as a string quartet with one instrument being replaced, but rather as a kind of piano sonata enriched with additional voices.
The second half will be a complete 180-degree turn from the first two works, plunging the audience into the stark emotionally intense world of two Russian composers. Rachmaninoff’s Elegy is from his Morceaux de Fantaisie. It is one of his earliest works and one of his most heart-rending for solo piano. It brings to mind his battle with depression and appears as a cathartic cry to overcome this disability.
Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet, one of the composer’s most enduring and best-known chamber works, will end the concert. It is quite fitting that, as we usher in the concert with a Prelude and Fugue by Bach, Shostakovich introduces his Quintet in the same manner. I’ve always regarded Shostakovich’s chamber music as works that pay respect to the Slavic people in one of their darkest times in modern history. The emotional intensity is coupled with repetitive motives that characterize the toil of the Slavic people, and the use of folk tunes seems designed to lift their spirits from the darker undertones. I’m excited to perform these last two works as a Russian-Canadian. I've recently learned Russian so that I can now read the great Russian novels and feel closer to the music I most love to perform.
From Kapustin to Shostakovich, it's all very personal for me." Daniel Tselyakov
I know you will enjoy this exciting concert with pianist Daniel Tselyakov and the WSO String Ensemble!
Best wishes, 
Young Artist Program
Soprano, Katrina Tamagi is pursuing her Master of Music in Performance at the University of Manitoba, studying voice under Tracy Dahl. Although she spent some time in Edmonton receiving her Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of Alberta, she calls Manitoba home. Katrina’s introduction to the vocal performance world was her symphony debut with the WSO as the winning vocalist of the 2011 Rising Stars Student Competition. Since then, she has had a wide range of performing opportunities; she has been a featured soloist with the University of Alberta Symphony Orchestra and the Alberta Baroque Ensemble. She has also participated in several young artist summer programs including Edmonton’s Opera NUOVA and Opera NEO in San Diego. One of her favourite experiences to date has been performing the role of Frasquita in Spotlight on Opera’s production of Carmen in San Marcos, Texas. Most recently, Katrina was a participant of Opera Kelowna’s summer intensive training program, under the direction of Alexandra Babbel.
