2008 Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation Concert Series

Dmitri Ratser March 7 7.30 pm Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center

Dmitri Ratser (www.ratser.com / dratser@yahoo.com), prior to 1990, remained one of the best kept secrets of the former Soviet Union. Born to a family of professional musicians, Dmitri Ratser’s exceptional talent resulted in his acceptance while still a child to study under the great Soviet pianist Professor Yakov Flier at the Moscow Conservatory.

Shortly after he earned his second diploma as Concert Artist and Teacher, Mr. Ratser was awarded First Prize in Moscow’s All-Soviet Union Rachmaninoff Competition. Three years later, he received Top Prize in Budapest’s Liszt International Jubilee Competition.

Mr. Ratser attained recognition as one of the few pianists to include in his repertoire the complete works for piano and orchestra of Sergei Rachmaninoff. He was so esteemed as an interpreter of Rachmaninoff that in 1998 he was selected to perform in the ceremony commemorating Rachmaninoff’s 125th birthday at the composer’s birthplace in the village of Ivanovka.

During a live radio broadcast in Moscow in 1989, Dmitri Ratser was discovered by a visiting American artist manager who thought he was listening to a recording of Vladimir Horowitz. When the performer and the circumstances were announced, the manager immediately contacted the artist and auditioned him to confirm that the artist he had heard on the radio and Dmitri Ratser were indeed the same. When this was proven to be true, arrangements were immediately begun for the 1990/1991 concert season which marked Dmitri Ratser’s introduction to the American public in East and West Coast recitals.

Mr. Ratser has returned to perform in the United States each season since his American debut. He has performed at the Kennedy Center three times with the National Symphony Orchestra under Mstislav Rostropovich, in solo appearances at Carnegie Hall, and with symphony orchestra in over thirty-five American cities.

He has been heard by overwhelming demand at prestigious recital series such as Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena, California where he, along with Ivo Pogerelich and Andre Watts, were the only pianists that were re-invited to appear in consecutive seasons. Dmitri Ratser has been consistently re-engaged to perform consecutive seasons over three-quarters of the venues in which he has appeared in throughout the world.

Dmitri Ratser also performs two-piano recitals and concerti with his daughter Anita, 20, Grand prize winner of the Cincinnati 2001 and First Prize winner of the Lennox 2003 and Sorantin 2004 International Piano Competitions.

From 2005 Dmitri Ratser was invited as a professor at Central Music School of Moscow State Conservatory.

The reason for Mr. Ratser’s popularity can be found in the words of the Los Angeles Times: “Ratser’s performance took one’s breath away with its mesmerizing single-mindedness, its inexorable force, and its stunning virtuosity.”

Dmitri Ratser is a Steinway Artists.