This local concert pianist learned a famous composition in just a month

Twenty-three-year-old pianist Jaeden Izik-Dzurko was born and raised in Salmon Arm, BC, but these days, he’s busy performing around the world, winning international piano competitions, and taking the classical music world by storm.

And he’ll be showing off his musical prowess in Kelowna later this month when he performs the notoriously difficult Third Piano Concerto by Sergei Rachmaninoff with the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra. .

Growing up in a very musical household, he was introduced to the instrument at a young age.

“Both my parents studied piano when they were younger, my mom until high school, and my dad into his first degree at university,” Izik-Dzurko told Kelowna10. “So I certainly heard a lot of piano as I was growing up and my dad was my first teacher, so he got me into it.”

He would go on to obtain his Bachelor of Music degree at the Juilliard School in New York, and is now pursuing a Master of Music degree at UBC.

Within the past year, he has taken first prizes at the Hilton Head (South Carolina), the Maria Canals (Barcelona), and the Paloma O’Shea Santander (Santander, Spain) International Piano Competitions, and second place in the Orchestra symphonique de Montreal Competition.

He is also a Grand Prize winner at the Federation of Canadian Music Festivals’ National Competition, a winner of Juilliard’s Gina Bachauer Scholarship Competition, and a Laureate of the Cochran International Piano Competition, among other honours.

However, he believes this is just the beginning of a long music journey.

“I definitely feel like I have a lot to learn yet. I think it’s probably a lifelong pursuit, I’m sure people continue to improve well into their senior years,” he explained. “I definitely sense improvement within myself, particularly in the last three or four years. But all that does is motivate me to keep working hard.”

One of his most recent challenges was given to him by his teacher at UBC, Dr. Corey Hamm, who posed the task of learning and memorizing the notoriously difficult Third Piano Concerto from Rachmaninoff in one month.

Izik-Dzurko accepted this challenge and came out victorious on the other side.

“It was a big challenge, at that time it was one of the hardest pieces I had tackled,” he said. “I’m very glad that he gave me that challenge in the long run because I think I internalized the music in a deeper way than I would have otherwise.”

The remainder of the year will be packed with performances for him from venues in Canada, all the way to Japan, as well as the undertaking of recording a CD under the Steinway & Sons label.

Izik-Dzurko will be in Kelowna on February 10th where he will be performing the Rachmaninoff piece at Kelowna Community Theatre.

Tickets are available for purchase on the KCT website.