Mission Statement
The Prima Music Foundation is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation with a mission to provide performance opportunities to aspiring young artists and building community through music. The foundation's goal is to create diverse and exciting evenings of music, where young artists perform in fusion recitals with eminent musicians. These musical soirees shall motivate and enhance young musician's development and inspire them, create exciting opportunities for their musical growth. One of the main goals is to help talented young pianists from under-represented communities to cover the costs of their participation in “Rising Stars” Piano Camp, which will be held in June 2023 in the Berkshires, MA. The idea of giving back comes from the vast experience in the music field of the founder of the Prima Music Foundation, pianist and pedagogue,
Anastasia Dedik.
Anastasia Dedik.
Board of Directors
Anastasia Dedik
Founder/President |
Rita Cuker
Vice President |
George Michael
Secretary/Treasurer |
Artistic Advisors
Konstantin Soukhovetski
Konstantin Soukhovetski is regarded as an original creative force among the pianists of his generation, in a concertizing career that has gained him audiences’ tributes and critics’ accolades in the US, Africa, Asia, and Europe. A recipient of over 17 awards and winner of top prizes at the Cleveland, Naumburg, and UNISA competitions, Konstantin has made his reputation applying his singular interpretive vision and natural virtuosity to the cornerstones of solo and concerto repertory, as confirmed by his renewed engagements and steady partnership with conductors. Konstantin is internationally acknowledged also as a composer, since the premiere of his transcription of R. Strauss’ Four Last Songs at L’Esprit du Piano festival in Bordeaux (France).
Some highlights of Konstantin’s career include critically acclaimed performances at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, Paris’ Musee du Louvre, Bern’s Paul Klee Zentrum, Carnegie’s Weill, and Zankel halls. For his debut at Lincoln Center Alice Tully Hall, Konstantin was praised on the NYTimes Arts Section cover: “Romanticism so intense it warms up Philip Glass.” The Independent gave 5 stars to Konstantin’s Wigmore Hall London debut, with a glowing review of Schubert’s last sonata: “…he let his vision take him where it would, and the result was revelatory, as was his handling of the sonata’s ambiguous close.” In 2020, Konstantin joined the adjunct faculty of his alma mater, The Juilliard School, where he received his BM, MM, and AD with Jerome Lowenthal. Konstantin has been recently named Director of Pedagogy and Narrative Musicianship at Bronx School for Music. Konstantin is deeply committed to musical education, regularly teaching masterclasses, interactive lecture performances, and residency programs with the Greater Connecticut Youth Orchestras, the ACES Educational Center for the Arts (CT), and the Grand Piano Series (FL), among many others. Since 2011, Konstantin has served as Artist-in-Residency at Paul Schenly’s Pianofest in the Hamptons, of which he is an alumnus (2000-2007). Other teaching engagements have taken Konstantin traveling around the world to the Cincinnati College- Conservatory, The Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Singapore), the Shantou Piano Museum (China), the New England Piano Teachers Association, and The Piano League, to name a few. Konstantin has served on the jury panel of the Piano Ohio Competition, the Hong Kong Music Schools Festival, the Perfect Tone competition in Indonesia and was on the screening jury of CIPC’s 2020 Virtu(al)oso International Piano Competition. |
Victor Rosenbaum
American pianist Victor Rosenbaum has concertized widely as soloist and chamber music performer in the United States, Europe, Israel, Brazil, Russia, and Asia in such prestigious halls as Tully Hall in New York and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. He has collaborated with such artists as Leonard Rose, Paul Katz, Arnold Steinhardt, Robert Mann, Joseph Silverstein, James Buswell, Malcolm Lowe, and the Brentano, Borromeo, and Cleveland String Quartets. A musician of diverse talents, Rosenbaum is also a composer and has frequently conducted in the Boston area and beyond.
Rosenbaum, who studied with Elizabeth Brock and Martin Marks while growing up in Indianapolis, and went on to study with Rosina Lhevinne at the Aspen Festival and Arthur Schnabel disciple, Leonard Shure, (while earning degrees at Brandeis University and Princeton) has become a renowned teacher himself. Recently retired from the faculty of New England Conservatory in Boston where he taught for more than fifty years, he chaired its piano department for more than a decade, and was also Chair of Chamber Music. Also a faculty member of Mannes School of Music in New York from 2004-2017, he has been Visiting Professor of Piano at the Eastman School of Music, a guest teacher at Juilliard, and presents lectures, workshops, and master classes for teachers’ groups and schools both in the U. S. and abroad. This season he is teaching and performing in Japan, Korea, Israel, and Taiwan. Rosenbaum was also Director and President of the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA from 1985-2001. His highly praised CD’s are on the Bridge and Fleur de Son labels. |
Julie Poklewski
Ms. Julie is an executive director of the San Jose International Piano Competition. For six years, she has served as president of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), Santa Clara Chapter. Within MTNA, she started several successful adult recitals and an emerging artists recital series.
Julie Poklewski began teaching piano classes when she was seventeen. Her mom, a concert pianist, had gone on tour to Spain, and while she was away, Julie took on her mom’s piano students so they wouldn’t miss out on their lessons. She later went on to earn her B.M. degree in Piano Performance and her M.A. in Piano Pedagogy. Her love for teaching only grew from there. From holding lessons out of her own house, Julie expanded into program development: facilitating group classes, organizing recitals, and hosting guest speakers to talk about history and composition to her students. Julie has been teaching and developing music programs ever since. In August of 2020, Julie founded Opus11 School of Music, together with her husband, Alex Poklewski. |