Stanislav Ioudenitch Joins Oberlin Conservatory Piano Faculty

Pianist Stanislav Ioudenitch, hailed worldwide for his artistry and teaching, will join the faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music as associate professor of piano beginning in the fall of 2017.

Born in Uzbekistan, Ioudenitch earned widespread recognition in 2001 when he won the gold medal at the XI Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The victory served as a springboard that has resulted in engagements in premier venues around the world. Since then, he has collaborated with countless esteemed orchestras and musicians, including the Munich Philharmonic, the Mariinsky Orchestra, and the National Symphony in Washington, D.C.; the Takács, Prazák, and Borromeo string quartets; and conductors including James Conlon, Valery Gergiev, and Mikhail Pletnev, among others. He has recorded for the Harmonia Mundi and Academy labels.

Ioudenitch is a former student of the prestigious International Piano Academy Lake Como in Italy, and he later became the youngest teacher ever to present a master class there. He now serves as vice president of Lake Como, which since 2015 has enjoyed a partnership with Oberlin Conservatory that brings elite student pianists to the Ohio campus for advanced study.

“Since my childhood years, teaching and performing have always been important to me. They have been a natural extension of my family of teachers and performers,” says Ioudenitch. “It is important to me to continue these priorities with my students and colleagues. Thus, I can draw upon my international connections with the Russian school, as represented by my former teachers, including Natalia Vasinkina and Dmitri Bashkirov; and with the great European and world traditions represented by Karl Ulrich Schnabel, Rosalyn Tureck, William Grant Naboré, and Leon Fleisher.

“It has been my privilege and inspiration to ‘attend’ these global classrooms. Giving back these experiences, knowledge, and performance practices to my own students has always been my personal and professional passion.” Among Ioudenitch’s students is Uzbek pianist Behzod Abduraimov, grand-prize winner of the 2009 London International Piano Competition at age 18.

No stranger to Oberlin, Ioudenitch has performed recitals and led master classes on campus, and has been a longtime fixture on jury panels for the Cooper International Competition for young pianists as well as its predecessor, the Oberlin International Piano Competition.

Prior to his appointment at Oberlin, Ioudenitch helped create the International Center for Music and the Youth Conservatory of Music at Park University near Kansas City, Mo.

“Stanislav Ioudenitch is one of the most highly sought-after musicians in the world today, and we are so happy to have him joining the Oberlin family,” says Alvin Chow, professor of piano at Oberlin and chair of the piano department. “He has proven his artistry and impeccable command of the keyboard, but what impresses me even more is his passionate commitment to teaching. He has the rare ability to articulate his feelings about the music in a way that transforms his students' playing, and so we feel he is a perfect fit to join our already distinguished piano faculty.”

Learn more about Oberlin’s piano department at oberlin.edu/con.