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THE ARTIST

About Asiya

The pianist who performed the complete Rachmaninoff solo piano works within the composer’s 150th-anniversary year in 2023, Asiya Korepanova is a pianistic powerhouse hailed as a "tremendously gifted pianist who exhibits a singular affinity for Rachmaninoff’s Russian romantic idiom and possesses the blazing technique to fully realize his distinctive scores" (South Florida Classical Review), who is also highly recognized as a composer, visual artist, and poet.

 

A herald of a repertoire encompassing over 65 piano concertos and solo works spanning five centuries, Asiya is a quintessential completist. 

She finds unique joy in performing programs such as the 24 Liszt Etudes or the entire Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach. Her emotionally charged and colorfully nuanced performances have gained her the admiration of audiences and resulted in many repeat engagements.

 

Asiya, a pianist and composer, draws her musical inspiration from the legacy of Dmitry Shostakovich, having studied composition under his direct disciple, Albert Leman.

She is the author of original works in multiple genres and instrumentations. Her historic solo piano transcriptions of Richard Strauss’ 'Ein Heldenleben', Rachmaninoff's Cello Sonata, Tchaikovsky's 'Manfred' Symphony,  Mussorgsky's 'Songs and Dances of Death' have placed her among today’s formidable transcribers, and attracted attention of  world-renown pianists such as Lang Lang and Polina Osetinskaya, who commissioned and recorded Asiya's transcriptions.

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The most recent composition events include the world premiere recording of Asiya’s concerto for alto saxophone and piano, Poéme, performed by Thomas Giles and Liana Pailodze Harron; the publication of her transcription of Rachmaninoff's cello sonata; the premiere of her Piano Quintet ‘I marvel at the sky’, commissioned by the Third Dimension Music Festival; and the premiere of Con Brio for two pianos, performed with her duo partner Ilya Kazantsev as a part of the Dranoff Two Piano Foundation series.

 

An avid chamber musician, Asiya collaborates with a wide array of musicians, such as David Shifrin, the Balourdet Quartet, the Hermitage Piano Trio, Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, Rodney Marsalis, Julian Schwarz, Eleni Katz, Irina Muresanu, and Alexander Fiterstein. She is an artistic director of summer chamber music festival 'Flatiron Festival' in New York City and ‘Seasons of Music at Unity Church’ concert series in Easton, Massachusetts.

 

Uninhibited in her artistic expression, Asiya is also sought after her work as a visual artist and poet. Her multimedia projects featuring original poetry and visual art serve as interpretive commentary for a particular cycle of piano works. These cycles include Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes, Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Tchaikovsky’s 18 Morceaux, Op. 72, and, most recently, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Asiya's live performances of these compositions have astounded audiences and organizers alike.

 

Caring about the development of society, in 2017 Asiya founded Music for Minds, a non-profit organization that brings classical performances into classrooms and creates music festivals featuring unique programming. 

 

Born in Izhevsk, Russia, to a musical family, Asiya began learning the piano at 4 years old from her mother Soreyya, her first piano teacher. At the age of 6, she was taught to read music in orchestral clefs by her father Sergey, an exemplary composer, and started composing her own music. At 9, she made her orchestral debut, playing Mozart Concerto No. 8 with her own cadenza, and gave her first full philharmonic recital.

  

Asiya earned her doctorate at the University of Miami under pianist and maestro Santiago Rodriguez, as well as Artist Diploma in the studios of Kevin Kenner and Tian Ying. In 2023, she was honored with the University of Miami's Centennial Medal. Her artistic mentors also include Peter Laul and Gabriela Montero.

 

Asiya continues to garner national and international attention with performances at the Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, the Phillips Collection, the Newport Classical Festival, the Tippet Rise Art Center, the San Francisco International Piano Festival, with Buenos Aires Philharmonic, National Symphony of Chile, Alabama Symphony, Pegasus Orchestra and many others. She has been featured on CNN, NPR stations, WFMT, and WETA.

 

In 2026-27 season, Asiya makes her Lincoln Center Debut with Pegasus Orchestra, tours in the Mid-West, returns to the Friends of Chamber Music of Miami series, the Vashon Center for the Arts, the Valley Symphony Orchestra, and the MostArts Festival, where she has been named an Artist-In-residence. In 2027, she directs the third season of her Flatiron Festival, a two-week chamber series on Manhattan, NYC, and the third season of her concert series “Seasons of Music at Unity Church” in Easton, Massachusetts.

She also anticipates the releases of scores of her compositions: the Poéme for alto saxophone and piano, Con Brio for two pianos, and Triptych for clarinet and piano, as well as her transcriptions for piano solo: Manfred Symphony by Peter Tchaikovsky, and various works for piano solo and piano four hands by Berg, Tchaikovsky, Fauré, and Bach.

 

Asiya and her husband Dmitry reside in a forest-rich Hudson River village near Manhattan, where she is free to practice or listen to music any time of the day or night. She is an avid runner and hiker, and a vocal advocate for a clean lifestyle.

© 2017-2025 Asiya Korepanova. All rights reserved.

Photography: © Emil Matveev

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