Oberlin Portrait: Angelina Gadeliya

Pianist Angelina Gadeliya is the first of six winners of the Oberlin Concerto Competition to be featured in Con Portraits this year. She recently performed Beethoven's Concerto No. 4 with the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra in Finney Chapel.

Angelina Gadeliya, 22, calls Colorado Springs, Colorado, home. When she visits her family, she often joins her four younger sisters for impromptu concerts. But her first home was the town where she was born, Sukhumi, Georgia, and where she began piano lessons, at the age of six, with Alla Golovco. When she was seven, her family moved to the Ukraine, and she continued her lessons with Elena Chebrova until her family immigrated to the United States in 1990.

The Gadeliyas settled first in South Dakota, and Angelina began piano studies with Arlene Krueger. Now, in her senior year at Oberlin, she studies with Associate Professor of Piano Angela Cheng. The two have worked together for five years; Angelina followed Cheng to Oberlin from the University of Colorado in 1998.

"I thought she played wonderfully," says Cheng in an interview following Angelina's performance with the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra. Asked to define Angelina's greatest strength as a student of piano, Cheng replies: "Her integrity, both to the score's marking and to the communication of the spirit in the music."

And her greatest strength as a musician overall?

"Her wonderful discipline." This and the fact that, as Cheng notes, "she is highly gifted," leads her to this assessment: "Angelina has the potential for a very bright future. In addition to being a wonderful pianist, she is an extremely warm, genuine, caring young woman and it has been an absolute joy to work with her. I will definitely miss her when she goes on to graduate school!"

Although Angelina is undecided about where she will pursue her master's degree after graduating from Oberlin, her plans do include some time for study abroad.

Besides Cheng, Angelina has studied with Yoheved Kaplinsky at the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, with John Perry at the Aspen Music Festival, and with Nikolai Lomov at the Adamant Music Festival in Vermont. She has performed in master classes with Jose Feghali, Phillip Bianconi, Nelita True, Ian Hobson, Russel Sherman, Menahem Pressler and Oberlin Associate Professor of Piano Haewon Song.

Angelina's appearance with the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra was not her first as soloist; she has performed with the South Dakota Symphony, the Sinfonia of Colorado, and the Fort Worth Chamber Orchestra. She has been a winner of the Fite Family National Young Artist Piano Competition; the South Dakota Symphony Young Artist Competition; the Sinfonia of Colorado Young Soloist Competition; the Nancy Clark Piano Competition; the TCU/Van Cliburn Institute Concerto Competition; and the J. Earl Lee National Piano Competition. At Oberlin, besides winning the concerto competition, she won the Arthur Dann Memorial Piano Competition and is a recipient of the Kaufman Prize in Chamber Music.

Angelina also enjoys playing the violin, which she studied extensively with Ray Sidoti. She was a member of the South Dakota Symphony for several years.

What is your first memory of music?
Hearing my mother, Stacy, play the piano and the bandura--a Ukrainian harp-like instrument-- and sing to us.

When did you begin musical studies?
I began piano lessons in Sukhumi, Georgia, and after a year my family moved to Kherson, Ukraine, where I attended a music school.

What inspired you to be a musician? What keeps you inspired on discouraging days?
I was drawn to music from the start because it enabled me to express my innermost thoughts, emotions, and feelings through something more meaningful and powerful than words. The healing power of music amazed me. It still does. On discouraging days, I think back to all the opportunities God has blessed me with, how far He has brought me, and I try to look at every problem as an opportunity and a reminder that His grace is sufficient.

What is the most memorable performance you have ever seen and why?
The performances that have had the most profound impact on me are those of Angela Cheng. If I had to pick two out, it would be her performance of the Ravel G Major Piano Concerto and Rachmaninoff's Third. The incredible electricity, intimacy and warmth in her playing bring me under an enchanted spell each time.

If you could perform with one musician, living or dead, who would it be and what would you perform?
As impossible as it is for me to pick one musician out of all, one experience that would be great would be to play Ravel's "La Valse" for two pianos with Ravel.

If you could master another instrument, what would it be?
It would definitely be the violin. Although I studied it for some time and played quite a bit through high school, I can't devote much time to it now. It would be great to really master it.

If you could not be a musician, what other profession would you choose? What profession would you definitely not choose? I would like to be a child psychologist. I could never be an accountant!

What do you listen to after a long day?
After a long day I listen to Cris Rice, CeCe Winans, or Jaci Valesquez--Christian pop artists.

What do you like to read?
My favorite is Dostoevsky, and I'm also crazy about any theology literature, especially C. S Lewis and John Bevere!

Three words that describe you:
Free-spirited, compassionate, and passionate.