Leeds Lunchtime Chamber Music 23/24

Royal Academy of Music:
Khrystyna Mykhailichenko – piano

Franz Schubert Four Impromptus, D 935
Amy Beach A Hermit Thrush at Eve
Franz Liszt Rhapsodie Espagnole

Approximately 50 minutes without interval

Khrystyna Mykhailichenko is a seventeen year old Ukrainian pianist who was born in Simferopol (Crimea, Ukraine). She performs with exceptional virtuosity throughout the world, in prestigious concert halls and music festivals. She was just 8 when her special prize in a competition led to her premiere solo performance with a full orchestra in Sevastopol. Soon after, Russia occupied Crimea and Khrystyna’s family was forced to flee to the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv.

Khrystyna studied at Kyiv State Music Lyceum under Natalia Tolpygo-Rusina until 2022. In March 2016, after winning three International competitions in one month, ten year old Khrystyna met another music professor, Alexei Grynyuk, the international pianist who became her teacher and mentor. His influence has added depth and emotional maturity to her approach to complex, challenging pieces some of which are rarely tackled by older pianists.

Khrystyna has performed recitals at the International Summer Music Academy in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz in Ukraine, the International Festival Art Dialogue in Switzerland, Mozart International Festival in Ukraine, the International Chamber Music Course and Festival Musica Mundi in Belgium, the 69th Young Artists Festival in Germany, the 9th International Chopin Master Classes Festival in Poland, and the 4^th Frost Chopin Festival in the USA among many others. Venues performed in include Salle Cortot in Paris, Bozar Hall in Brussels, the Music Academies of Bruges, Antwerp, Krakow, Bremen, Gariunu concert hall in Vilnius, the UN residence in New York and all the National Philharmonics of Ukraine.

At the outbreak of war in February 2022, Khrystyna fled to Poland with her mother and sister before settling in the UK in June. As well as continuing to travel extensively for performances, has been refining her studies with Graham Scott at the Royal Northern College of Music, and will become a full time student at the Royal Academy of Music in September.