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Aileen
Chanco, Pianist
Biography |
From the time pianist Aileen Chanco made her stunning debut with
the San Francisco Symphony at the age of thirteen, she has continued
to enthrall audiences and critics alike with her instinctive brand
of virtuosity and sensitivity. She caught the notice of then up
and coming conductor, Kent Nagano who chose her to solo with him
during an engagement with the Boston Pops. After the success of
this east coast debut, Aileen was named a Presidential Scholar
of the Arts and presented with a medal at the White House by the
President, following which she made her debut at the Kennedy Center.
Determined to pursue a career as a performing artist, Aileen immersed
herself in musical studies with Herbert Stessin at the Juilliard
School where she received both her Bachelors and Masters degrees
in Music. Since then, she has appeared as soloist, recitalist
and chamber musician throughout the United States, Canada, Europe
and Asia. Concerts have included performances in New York’s
Alice Tully Hall, Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts and the Cultural Center for the Performing Arts
in the Philippines. She has performed with orchestras including
the Shreveport, Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Albuquerque,
York Symphony Orchestra, Lima Symphony Orchestra and Berkeley
Symphony Orchestra among others. Appearances with festival orchestras
have included the Banff Festival Chamber Orchestra in Canada,
the Desert Music Festival Orchestra of Arizona and Music in the
Mountains Festival Orchestra in California.
In 2003, Aileen made a highly anticipated return to the Philippines,
the land of her birth to debut with the Manila Philharmonic Orchestra.
“We were unbelievably awed with her rare expressive musicality.
Her performance is something the Manila audience at the Philam
Life Theater will never forget – it was a shining moment
for our country.” –THE MANILA TIMES. The collaboration
was so successful that Aileen returned at the request of the Cultural
Center of the Philippines to perform the Philippine premiere of
John Adam’s “Century Rolls” with the Philippine
Philharmonic Orchestra. Her performance was hailed as a tremendous
achievement” and critics described her as an “astonishing
pianist”.
Aileen has received numerous awards and honors including first
place in the Young Keyboard Artist International Competition,
the Pepsi-Cola Young Artist Competition, and the Seventeen Magazine-General
Motors National Concerto Competition. She was recipient of the
National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts Award and
she is an alumnus of the Aspen Summer Music Festival, the Banff
Centre Resident Artist Program, the Moscow Conservatory in America
and the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. Aileen resides in California
with her husband, double bassist Bill Everett. She is both founder
and Artistic Director of Music at the Mission Concert Series whose
performances are held in one of California’s famous historic
missions, Mission San Jose. Her passions are traveling, hiking
and fencing.
Her most current CD was released in October of 2005 “Images
of Three Centuries” and was recorded under the Con Brio
Recordings label. American Record Guide wrote:
Pianist Chanco makes her strongest and most convincing impression
in Moussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, which seems
to be a temperamental fit. Her sound is beautiful and the music
flows well.… Many of the details of Pictures have been imaginatively
worked out and beautifully delivered…Chanco also gives a
lovely reading of the opening piece of Images, “Reflects
dans l’eau”. Her sound is right and she is fully engaged
in this rapturous little piece. Mark Fish’s “Three
Ages of Woman” a work of about six minutes, feels like three
improvisations on moods. The pianist gives it an effective, involved
reading; sympathetic to the composer…Chanco is a talented
pianist…her career seems worth watching.
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