Pianist Behzod Abduraimov, grand prize winner at the 2009 London International Piano Competition and a Park University senior applied music/piano major from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, has won two prestigious French awards, the Choc de Classica and the Diapason Découverte, for his debut album.
The album, Abduraimov, featuring piano works by Saint-Saëns, Prokofiev and Liszt, was released by Decca Classics, London, in March and has since received praise from around the globe, with The Telegraph describing Abduraimov as “an artist not only of extraordinary technical ability, but also one with a terrific musical personality and sensibility. Those qualities come through clearly on this disc.” The awards are given by Classica magazine, France’s national classical music publication.
Abduraimov, who at Park studies under Uzbek compatriot Stanislav Ioudenitch, winner of the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and associate professor of music with the University’s International Center for Music, made his professional debut in September performing with the United Kingdom’s Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and with the L’Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Italy.
Born in 1990 in Tashkent, Abduraimov began playing the piano at the age of 5, and at 8 made his debut with the Uzbek State Symphony Orchestra. Concerts followed in Russia, Italy and the United States. He studied under Tamara Popovich at the Uspensky State Central Lyceum in Tashkent. After he had won the Lennox Young Artist Competition (in Richardson, Texas) and the Corpus Christi (Texas) International Competition in the U.S. in 2008, his victory in the 2009 London International Piano Competition resulted in invitations to work with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. During 2009-10, Abduraimov toured China and Kuala Lumpur with the Sydney (Australia) Symphony under Vladimir Ashkenazy to great critical acclaim, and they collaborated again as part of the 2010 Bremen (Germany) Musikfest.
