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The Israeli pianist, Ilana Vered, was born into a musical family. Her mother was a concert pianist and her father was a violinist. Ilana began playing the piano at the age of 3, taking piano lessons as a child with her mother. At age 13 she won an Israeli government grant to continue her studies at the Paris Conservatoire, where she studied with the eminent pianist Vlado Perlemuter and with Jeanne-Marie Darré. At age 15 she graduated from the Paris Conservatoire, which awarded her first prize in piano upon her graduation. She completed her studies at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City under the tutorship of Rosina Lhevinne, Nadia Reisenberg, and Aube Tzerko. She made her debut as one of the first winners of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 1961. In 1969 she received a grant from the Martha Baird Rockefeller founding for a major tour of Europe. Subsequently she made other tours there and in the USA.
Ilana Vered has been heard in recital in virtually all of the music centers of the world, and has been engaged and re-engaged as soloist with the leading orchestras of our time: the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Japan NHK Symphony Orchestra, Münchner Philharmoniker, and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. She has performed as soloist under the batons of most of the world's finest conductors, including Leopold Stokowski, Georg Solti, Zubin Mehta, Rudolf Kempe, Kirill Kondrashin, Michael Tilson Thomas, Edo de Waart, Leonard Slatkin, Sergiu Comissiona, Conlon, Colin Davis, Kurt Sanderling, Cassadesus, Bertini, Raymond Leppard, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Atzmon, Raymond Leppard, Rodan, James Judd, Lawrence Foster, Matthias Bamert, Mariss Jansons and Vanska. A regular participant in summer festivals, Vered has made appearances at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York, Chicago's Ravinia Festival, Tanglewood, Caramoor, Cleveland's Blossom Festival, the Meadow-brooks Festival in Detroit, and at Los Angeles' Hollywood Bowl. She has repeatedly demonstrated sovereign musical and technical command over some forty-five concertos - from J.S. Bach, through W.A. Mozart, Frédéric Chopin, Johannes Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninov, to Alban Berg.
The name Ilana Vered is synonymous with vibrant piano virtuosity since the earliest days of this compelling artist's career. "Shattering," "magnificent," "dazzling," "splendid" are words critics have used the world over to describe Ilana Vered on the concert stage. Renowned for the white-hot intensity of her performances, Vered now comes before her public as a musician whose art has achieved a rare balance between passion and intellect, temperament and reflection.
Ilana Vered is a chamber musician of distinction and has appeared with important chamber ensembles throughout the world. She is noted particularly for her frequent performances with the Tokyo String Quartet. A highlight of this collaboration was Vered's world premiere performance with the ensemble of Ezra Laderman's Piano Quintet at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. This work, which was written for Ilana Vered and the Tokyo String Quartet, was later recorded by them for the RCA label.
During the Hampton Summerfest and the Rutgers Summerfest Ilana Vered performed the five L.v. Beethoven concertos in one event. During the 1993-1994 season, she performed a L.v. Beethoven cycle of the complete sonatas and variations for piano and cello, with cellist Sharon Robinson, in Washington, D.C., Santa Fe, New York City, and other major musical centers throughout the USA. Vered, who has a devoted following in the Far East, appeared in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and toured the major cities of Japan numerous times with the NHK Symphony Orchestra.
Ilana Vaered recorded for Decca/London in the 1970’s. In addition to her distinguished series of recordings for the London label including: J. Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2, The two popular W.A. Mozart’s Piano Concerti No. 21 and No. 23, Sergei Rachmaninov’s Paganini Variations and Piano Concerto No. 2, Vered has to her credit a highly-praised version of the complete F. Chopin's Etudes, Opp. 10 and 25, a brilliant world premiere complete recording of Moszkowski's 15 Études de Virtuosité, Op. 72 (1970), both for Connoir Records, and Connoisseur Records has release a disc entitled "25 Virtuoso Etudes" on which Vered offers new readings of concert etudes by F. Chopin, Robert Schumann, Paganini-Liszt, and Debussy (1992). Her recordings of F. Chopin and Moritz Moszkowski études have received particular critical notice. She has committed to disc the Complete set of L.v. Beethoven's five piano concertos with the Warsaw Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Kazimierz Kord, released in late 1993 by the ProArte label, represent the culmination of Vered's long association with the L.v. Beethoven concertos--works she has always regarded as the cornerstone of the concerto repertoire. "I have lived with these great concertos for many years, and it was a thrill for me finally to record them," Vered asserts. "I am always struck by the way the wonderful slow movements of these works proceed out of a kind of all-knowing inner necessity--like a reflective soul caught between the magnificent 'rubble' of the outer movements, in which Beethoven seems to topple huge blocks of sound in a defiant affirmation of joy and humanity."
Ilana Vered has been a frequent guest on television and radio, including appearances on The Show, Good Morning America, and the Merv Griffin Show, as well as guest performances on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Public television stations in the USA and the BBC in the UK. In collaboration with the noted Swiss movie producer Adrian Marthaler, Vered has made a series of unusual feature-length films entitled "Looking at Music," which was telecast by the BBC, and the Arts and Entertainment and Bravo cable networks. These films are being distributed as home videos in the USA By BMG.
Ilana Vered has also taught master-classes and has founded at least two festivals, the Summerfest Series of Rutgers University and Music Fest Perugia in Perugia, Italy. |
