Maria Ioudenitch & Kenny Broberg
Biography Maria Ioudenitch & Kenny Broberg
Maria Ioudenitch
completed her Bachelor’s at the Curtis Institute of Music and her Master’s at New England Conservatory. She is currently finishing her studies at NEC with Miriam Fried as an Artist Diploma candidate. Over the past year, Ioudenitch has received first prizes in the Ysaye International Music Competition, the Tibor Varga International Violin Competition, and the Joachim International Competition, as well as numerous other prizes within these competitions, most notably Joachim’s Warner Classics prize, which will lead to a debut album set to release in summer 2022.
Recent solo engagements include the Utah Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, NDR Radiophilharmonie, NFM Leopoldinum, Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra, Lithuania Chamber Orchestra, the Signature Symphony at TCC, Israel Camerata, and the National Orchestra of Uzbekistan. Recent chamber music performances have taken Ioudenitch across South America with Roberto Diaz and to Chicago, New York, Connecticut, and Boston with Miriam Fried.
Maria Ioudenitch has participated in various summer festivals and academies such as the Marlboro Music Festival, Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, the International Summer Academy at Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg, and the International Music Academy in the Principality of Liechtenstein. She was appointed Concertmaster of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra during the 2016-2017 season, ending the season with a tour through Europe featuring Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben.
Born in Russia and raised in Kansas City, Maria Ioudenitch began studying the violin at the age of 3 because there were just too many pianists in the house. Her pianist parents, Stanislav and Tatiana, handed her a tiny violin and the rest is history. Apart from classical music, Maria adores Jazz and visual art. Some of her favorite composers and artists include Robert Schumann, Jazz composer Oscar Peterson, and Surrealist artist Remedíos Varo.
Kenny Broberg
During his auspicious career before winning the 2021 American Pianist Awards and Christel DeHaan Classical Fellowship, Kenny Broberg captured the silver medal at the 2017 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and a bronze medal at the 2019 International Tchaikovsky Competition as well as prizes at the Hastings, Sydney, Seattle and New Orleans International Piano Competitions, becoming one of the most decorated and internationally renowned pianists of his generation. Broberg is lauded for his inventive, intelligent and intense performances.
“Broberg mastered everything he performed over the weekend, pulling a palette of moods from every register,” The Indianapolis Star writes of Broberg’s performance during the Finals for American Pianists Awards. “In the ‘Dante Sonata’ from Liszt's Years of Pilgrimage, the pianist easily captured the drama in the journey, marrying all of the energy of those emotions in the epic ending.”
Crediting his first exposure to classical music to his Italian grandfather’s love of the Three Tenors, Broberg began piano lessons on his family’s upright piano at age 6. During his childhood in Minneapolis, he began studying piano with Dr. Joseph Zins at Crocus Hill Studios in Saint Paul. Throughout high school, he balanced his musical lessons with playing baseball and hockey. He remains an avid fan for both the Minnesota Twins and Wild and checks their scores while on breaks during his practice.
Broberg earned a Bachelor of Music degree in 2016 at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music, studying under Nancy Weems. He continued his studies at Park University in Parkville, Missouri, under the direction of Stanislav Ioudenitch, the gold medalist at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Starting in the 2022-2023 academic year, Broberg will join the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid as Deputy Professor of the Fundación Banco Santander Piano Chair led by Ioudenitch.
Performing on stages and in concert halls across Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America, Broberg has worked with some of the world’s most respected conductors, including Ludovic Morlot, Kent Nagano, Leonard Slatkin, Vasily Petrenko, Nicholas Milton, John Storgårds, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Gerard Schwarz and Stilian Kirov. He has collaborated with the Royal Philharmonic and the Minnesota, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Sydney, Seattle and Fort Worth Symphonies, among others. He has been featured on WQXR, Performance Today, Minnesota Public Radio and ABC (Australia) radio, and presented his original composition “Barcarolle” on NPR in March 2021.
As part of the American Pianist Awards, he will release his first studio album with the Steinway & Sons label in late 2022.
The Christel DeHaan Classical Fellowship also provides Broberg with a prize valued at $200,000 designed to assist him as he builds his musical career. It includes $50,000 in cash, two years of professional development and assistance and performance opportunities worldwide. Broberg will also work with students and host performances during his time on campus as the Artist-in-Residence at the University of Indianapolis. Before embarking on his international concerts, Broberg performed in his adopted home of Kansas City, Missouri, for the concert “KC Celebrates Kenny Broberg” in September 2021.
