NEWS RELEASE

Contact: David West (west@nsula.edu )
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466

3/21/2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NATCHITOCHES - Pianists Nikita Fitenko, Alexander Tutunov and Katerina Zaitseva will be featured in a "Russian Piano Concerto Showcase" at Northwestern State University Thursday, March 29 at 7:30 p.m. in Magale Recital Hall. The concert is part of the Louisiana Piano Series International. Tickets are $10. Elementary and secondary school students from Louisiana and NSU students are admitted free.

Marlan Carlson, music director of the Corvallis-OSU Symphony Orchestra and chairman of the Oregon State University Department of Music, will be the conductor.

Zaitseva will perform "Concerto No. 2, in B major" by Alexander Glazunov. Fitenko will perform "Piano Concerto" by Alexander Scriabin. Tutunov will play "Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra" by Peter Tchaikovsky.

Carlson holds a doctorate and artist's diploma from the Eastman School of Music and has been both a Fulbright Scholar and a Danforth Fellow. Professionally, he has been principal viola in the Heidelberg Staedtisches Orchester, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra.

In 2000, he was presented with the International Service Award by Oregon State. Following several enthusiastically acclaimed concerts in 2001 in Zhengzhou, China, Carlson was named "Permanent Honorable Guest Conductor" of the Henan Province Symphony Orchestra. Last season, he conducted symphony orchestra concerts in Zhengzhou and Tianjin, China, as well as in Lund, Sweden.

Fitenko, an assistant professor of piano and coordinator of keyboard studies at Northwestern, has performed recitals and with orchestras in the former Soviet Union, Europe, Asia, and South and North America.

A native of St. Petersburg, Russia, Fitenko graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory with a citation for excellence given to only five other graduates in the last 50 years. After receiving the Anton Rubinstein Memorial Award, he obtained his master's and doctoral degrees from the University of North Texas.

He is a prizewinner of numerous competitions including the Byelorussian International Piano Competition in Minsk, Byelorussia, the Beethoven Piano Competition and the Houston Symphony National Young Artist Competition. In 1999 and 2000, his three CDs of complete piano music by the Russian composers Georgy Sviridov and Sergey Slonimsky were released on the Altarus label.

Since 2002, Nikita Fitenko has been the artistic director of the Louisiana Piano Series International. He is also the founder and artistic director of the Louisiana International Piano Competition.

Tutunov is one of the most outstanding young virtuosos of the former Soviet Union. A native of Byelorussia, he entered the Central Music School of the Moscow Conservatory at age seven. Tutunov was one of three chosen out of 200 applicants to study with Lev Naumov and Victor Merzhanov. He also holds diplomas in concert performance, with honors, from the Minsk Musical College (Byelorussia), University of North Texas (piano studies with Joseph Banowetz), and the Byelorussian National Academy of Music.

A first prizewinner of the Byelorussian National Piano Competition, Tutunov was a winner of the Russian National Piano Competition. He has performed widely in the former Soviet Union, Poland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and the United States as a recitalist, soloist with orchestra and on radio and television.

Tutunov is director of keyboard studies at Southern Oregon University. He has also taught at the Minsk College of Music, the University of North Texas, and Illinois Wesleyan University.

Zaitseva, a faculty member at Louisiana College, previously taught at Northwestern. A native of Moscow, she has performed throughout the United States and Russia including appearances in Moscow State Conservatory Hall, the Kennedy Center and Steinway Hall. Her orchestral appearances include performances with the Moscow State Conservatory Orchestra, Dallas Chamber Orchestra, Meadows Symphony Orchestra, the Northeast Arkansas Symphony and Rapides Symphony Orchestra. In 2001, Zaitseva played for the King Juan Carlos of Spain at the opening of the new Meadows Museum of Arts in Dallas.

Zaitseva received her master's in piano performance from Southern Methodist University, a bachelor's from the University of North Texas and a diploma from the Music School affiliated with the Moscow State Conservatory in Russia. Zaitseva is a winner of numerous competitions and awards including the MTNA Competition, SMU Concerto Competition, Von Mickwitz Prize in Piano, as well as the Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award.

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