Pianist Marta Brankovich & Composer Fredrick Kaufman Talk “Yin & Yang”
‘‘As a young pianist born in Serbia, but resident in the United States for the past fifteen years, MARTA BRANKOVICH was steadfastly building an impressive resume as a concert artist when lightning struck and her career took flight. A dress, a movie, an enthusiastic crowd, suddenly she was ‘The Black Swan of Piano,’ a soubriquet she revels in and one she hopes will energize the blandly decorous image of the traditional piano recital. Meanwhile, her debut CD, Black Swan of Piano, provides a tantalizing taste of what’s to come.’’
Fanfare Magazine ‘Black Swan of Piano Spreads Her Wings’– Robert Schulslaper
Marta Brankovich was born in Belgrade, Serbia. During her studies she received numerous international and domestic awards, scholarships, and public recognition, including winning third place in the prestigious Rubinstein piano competition in 1997, and receiving a special honorary scholarship from her country for making an outstanding career in the US in 2005. Brankovich is currently living in Miami where she received a second Masters diploma in piano performance in from Florida International University. During her master studies she participated in numerous festivals from EPTA in Europe, IKIF in New York, to New Music Festival and Subtropics Festival in South Florida.
Since 2010, Marta has held over one hundred and fifty solo recitals in major halls of East Coast USA. She recorded for TV and Radio in Europe and the USA. She has been collaborating with many international artists, including playing in a piano duet with Kemal Gekić.
FREDRICK KAUFMAN (b.1936) is the composer of over one hundred and thirty compositions that have been performed worldwide by orchestras such as the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Israel Philharmonic, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, the Czech Radio Orchestra, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Lithuanian Philharmonic and Chamber Orchestra, the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, the Czech Symphony Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony, the Instrumental Ensemble of Grenoble, the London Sinfonietta, Orchestra Novi Musici (Naples Italy), the Dominican Republic National Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Brazil, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New World Symphony and the Pittsburgh Symphony orchestras. His ballets have been danced by companies such as the Royal Swedish Ballet, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, the Batsheva Dance Company, the Bat-Dor Dance Company and the Pennsylvania Dance Theater.
Kaufman is a former Fulbright Scholar, and author of The African Roots of Jazz, a groundbreaking study that drew heavily on his early musical life as a jazz trumpet player with the Woody Herman Band. He is the recipient of the Darius Milhaud Award in Composition from the Aspen Music Festival, and honors and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller, Guggenheim and Ford Foundations, the California, Montana and Pennsylvania Arts Councils as well as the Norwegian Government.
For more information , watch our ArtSpeak video interview with Fredrick Kaufman from 2018.
The videos below are organized by topic and run between 30 seconds and 4 minutes. Click on any video. You must be connected to the Internet to view the videos.
EXCERPT FROM YIN & YANG: 3:54 min.
SEIZES OPPORTUNITIES: 2:15 min.
SELF-CONFIDENCE: 1:52 min.
CREATES A UNIQUE PERSONAL BRAND: 1:26 min.
OVERCOMES CHALLENGES TO SUCCEED: 1:38 min.
CREATES A UNIQUE PERSONAL BRAND: 1:11 min.
COLLABORATION: 1:28 min.
COLLABORATION: 1:07 min.
OVERCOMES CHALLENGES TO SUCCEED: 1:00 min.
PERSEVERANCE FURTHERS: 0:55 sec.
COLLABORATION: 0:46 sec.
EXPOSURE TO BROAD INFLUENCES: 1:28 min.
INSIGHT & INSPIRATION: 1:02 min.
INSIGHT & INSPIRATION: 1:44 min.
PERSEVERANCE FURTHERS: 2:37 min.
COLLABORATION: 0:51 sec.
