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Our Guest Artists
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Once upon a time in a fifth floor dance studio, a mutual admiration society was formed and a unique partnership launched. Surprised and pleased by their mutual satisfaction in performing Saint-Saens’ “Carnival of the Animals” and Stravinsky’s “Firebird”, Manhattan School of Music alumni Noriko Suzuki and Ferdy Tumakaka--both prize-winning pianists but with vastly different styles--decided to see where an expanded collaboration might take them. Their goal: An artistic union that, rather than minimizing the contrasts between them, would make use of them to enhance the music.
Noriko Suzuki, a Yamaha New York Rising Star, is the 2002 winner of the IBLA Most Distinguished Musician Award and Kabalevsky Special Prize, and second prize winner of the 1999 Soulima and Françoise Stravinsky New Millennium International Competition. She has performed as a soloist, chamber musician, throughout the United States, Europe and Japan, and was recently a featured soloist with Japan’s “Great Artists” Symphony Orchestra at the 25th Annual Tokyo International Forum.
Ferdy Tumakaka made his debut at 17 as the First Prize Winner of the 2001 Jakarta Piano Competition and has given solo performances on three continents. He has served as music director and arranger for musical theater productions in both his native Indonesia and New York, and in 2005, was appointed Music Director for the New York Theatre Ballet.
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