Miami International Music Academy
Piano Masterclass

Kemal Gekic

Flamboyant, daring, provocative, exciting, seductive and sensitive are some of the words used to describe one of today's most formidable pianists, Kemal Gekic, whose playing has been acclaimed worldwide by public and critics alike.Born in Split, Croatia in 1962, Gekic amazed his family by accurately picking out melodies at the piano at age one and a half. The young prodigy received all his early musical training from his aunt, Lorenza Batturina. In 1978 he entered the class pf Prof. Jokuthon Mihailovich (a graduate of Moscow Conservatory) at the Art Academy of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. He graduated in 1982 with the highest mark ever granted a diploma exam recital, and was immediately given a faculty appointment by the piano department which he eventually directed until 1999. During his school years he won prizes at the Franz Liszt Competition in Parma (1981), the Viana da Motta in Lisbon (1983) and the Yugoslav Artists' Competition in Zagreb (1984).

He earned his Master's degree in 1985, the same year he created a sensation at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw. Although panned by the jury he won the hearts of audience and critics alike, and began receiving many invitations to perform abroad, including several from the Chopin Society of Hannover, Germany which had awarded him a special prize for best sonata performance at the competition. A recording of his Warsaw performances sold 60,000 copies in Germany by the end of the year, and the Victor Entertainment Corporation, Japan (JVC) sold 80,000 copies of a CD version in their home country. The Warsaw Philharmonic invited Gekic to perform the E minor Chopin Piano Concerto in Philharmonic Hall in their regular series that season. In the same hall, with the same orchestra as he would have done in the competition finals, Gekic wowed the Warsaw once more, and for an encore gave Chopin's Third Sonata in B minor in its entirety! In the years following the 1985 Chopin Competition, in addition to extensive concert activity in Germany, Denmark, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Spain, France, Italy, Canada and of course Yugoslavia, he completed tours of the USSR and Japan-Southeast Rim. Programs of his life and his performances were broadcast by RAI Italy, TV Portugal, TV Yugoslavia, NHK Japan, POLTEL Poland, RTV Lower Saxony West Germany, RTV USSR, Intervision, CBC and PBS.

The Academy is an outstanding tuition- free  program of the Miami International Music Academy that accepts 7 pre-college gifted piano students and exposes them to a variety of masterclasses with international artists as well as musicianship classes

Date & Location
Thu., Mar 26 of 2015 at 1:00 PM
Admission
FREE
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