Vadym Kholodenko, Ukrainian Pianist, Returns to Performance After Tragedy

Vadym Kholodenko, an award-winning Ukrainian pianist, performed on Sunday night as part of the PianoTexas festival at Texas Christian University. It was his first public performance since the March murder of his two young daughters perpetrated by his estranged wife.

Kholodenko, who is based in Texas, arrived at the Fort Worth-area home of his former spouse on March 17 to find that his two children had been killed. The wife, Sofia Tsygankova, was also found inside the house with stab wounds. After an investigation, Kholodenko was ruled out as a suspect.

Tsygankova was arrested and charged with the murder on March 21. Obviously grieving, Kholodenko had not returned to performance until this past Sunday evening. Of his bittersweet musical reappearance this week, the Dallas Morning News wrote:

"Kholodenko won the gold medal in the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in part with barnstorming performances of the nearly complete Liszt Transcendental Etudes. There was Liszt again this time, with grand gestures, thundering chords and torrents of notes in the 'Invocation' from Poetic and Religious Harmonies and the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 19. But the evening was more remarkable for showing Kholodenko's more introspective, indeed poetic, side, and in music not exactly on the pianistic hit parade."

Kholodenko has been strongly associated with Van Cliburn since the aforementioned competition win, and he is even managed by Van Cliburn Foundation. The pianist has also taken first prize at the 2011 International Schubert Competition, 2010 Sendai International Music Competition and 2004's Maria Callas International Piano Competition.

Kholodenko's triumphant but mournful recital return on Sunday was somberly opened with his performance of Robert Schumann's "Funeral Procession" from the composer's Nachtstücke (Night Pieces) suite. The Los Angeles Times reported on the performer's exquisite encore, a stirring rendition of a Tchaikovsky-Rachmaninoff "Lullaby":

"His first encore was none other than that Tchaikovsky lullaby, this time played with almost unbearably grave solemnity. I cannot say whether this was an act of psychological courage, pianistic therapy or simple, if profound, professionalism. Possibly, it was a rare combination of all three."

The PianoTexas festival continues until June 26.

TagsVadym Kholodenko, PianoTexas