Yoko Miwa & Maxim Lubarsky – Newton Piano Summit ONLINE
Yoko Miwa and Maxim Lubarsky & Bertram Lehmann
A native of Odessa, Ukraine, Maxim Lubarsky started his career as a classical pianist. After graduating from the conservatory, Lubarsky decided to pursue jazz education, which brought him to Berklee College of Music, he was the recipient of BEST scholarship and the Berklee Technics Piano Award in 2002. Maxim has been involved in numerous projects and recordings with performers such as Terry Lynn Carrington, Dave Samuels, Greg Osby, E.J Strickland, Gabrielle Goodman, Dave Liebman and Tiger Okioshi. Maxim has appeared at festivals including St. Petersburg Music Fest (Russia), Beantown Festival (MA), Diacetum Festival (Italy), “Usadba Jazz” Festival (Russia), ArtNaples Festival (FL), “Krivoy Rog” festival (Ukraine), Cambridge Jazz Festival (MA), Salem Jazz and Soul Festival (MA), Bethel Art Festival (PA). He has been a regular at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, S. Carolina where in the summer of 2012 he performed Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with Festival Symphony Orchestra. Maxim continues an active performing career in Boston and New York, as well as touring internationally.
Yoko Miwa – Returning Artist from last year
“Pianist Yoko Miwa displays unpretentious melodies, elegant phrasing, and the lyrical sensibility of a jazz poet.” –Jazziz Magazine
“She has the enviable ability to play in any context with authenticity, clarity, and spontaneity…” -Wilbert Sostre, JazzTimes
Internationally acclaimed pianist/composer Yoko Miwa is quickly becoming known as one of the most powerful and compelling performers on the scene today. Her trio – with its remarkable telepathy and infectious energy – has brought audiences to their feet worldwide. Of Miwa’s 2017 release Pathways, Dan McClenaghan of All About Jazz said, “4 stars–This is Yoko Miwa at her extroverted best…her finest recording to date.” Pathways – her seventh as a leader –which spent 4 weeks on the Jazz Week top 10 radio charts and is earning wide critical acclaim. Miwa was the subject of a feature article in the September 2017 issue of DownBeat that referenced her “impressive technique and a tuneful lyricism that combines an Oscar Peterson-ish hard swing with Bill Evans-like introspection.”She plays regularly at major jazz clubs in their home city of Boston, as well as venues around the world. A favorite of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Miwa was chosen to play on “Marian McPartland & Friends.” Miwa also appears regularly at New York’s famed Blue Note Jazz Club and has performed and/or recorded with a wide range of jazz greats including Sheila Jordan, Slide Hampton, Arturo Sandoval, George Garzone, Jon Faddis, Jerry Bergonzi, Esperanza Spalding, Terri Lyne Carrington, Kevin Mahogany, John Lockwood and Johnathan Blake among others. In the late 1990s, the classically-trained artist auditioned for Berklee College of Music on a lark and ended up winning a full scholarship. She arrived at the school from her homeland of Japan in 1997, intending to stay for a year. In 2017, she’s still in Boston, enriching the city’s musical life and serving as one of the most popular professors in the Berklee piano department.