Biography
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1969 to Ukrainian immigrants, Mahlay began to study the piano at the age of five. Soon after he began studies on the violin. He studied violin, music theory and form at the Cleveland Music School Settlement where he received scholarships for his studies. Mahlay also studied piano with Dr. George Cherry of Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory of Music. His violin teachers included Elmer Seltzer of the Cleveland Orchestra and Jeannette Drinkold-Meyer, a student of renowned violinist Josef Gingold.
Beginning in his early teens, Mahlay demonstrated outstanding ability in both the violin and the piano. At the 1986 Baldwin Wallace Conservatory Summer Music Clinic in Berea, Ohio, he won the piano competition, performing Mozart's Piano Concerto in G Major, K. 453 with orchestra. He repeated this feat the next year in which he performed Beethoven's Piano Concert No. 1 in C Major. He also played in various youth orchestra at the Baldwin Wallace Preparatory Department, and in 1987 was honored as the Outstanding Preparatory Student of the Year. That same year he was also the piano soloist in Beethoven's Choral Fantasy with the Parma Symphony Orchestra. He was also a member of the first violin section of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in its inaugural season.
Mahlay received a bachelor of arts in music history and literature from Case Western Reserve University. He studied voice and piano at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He served as the concertmaster of the University Circle Chamber Orchestra for four years. During his undergraduate studies, the university awarded him the Kennedy Prize for Creative Achievement in Music, and the Charles E. Clemens Prize for Talent and Accomplishment in Music. He is also a member of the Pi Kappa Lambda music honorary society at C.I.M. and C.W.R.U. Mahlay was a magna cum laude and phi beta kappa graduate.
In 1988, Maestro Mahlay attended the Bolzano Institute of Music in Bolzano, Italy. There, he concentrated on piano chamber works and accompanying. The previous two years he participated in a choral conducting seminar in Edmonton, Canada. This workshop was run by Wolodymyr Kolesnyk, formerly of the Kiev Opera and artistic director of the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus for over a decade.
Read more about this topic: Oleh Mahlay
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