Sunday, March 18, 2018
Dr. Igor Lipinski, Assistant Professor of Piano, joined the piano faculty at the University of Oklahoma in Fall 2017.
Lipinski made his orchestra debut with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra on NPR’s Performance Today and performed as a soloist with Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Cape Cod Symphony Orchestra, Butler County Symphony Orchestra, Woodstock Mozart Festival Orchestra, Lakes Area Music Festival Orchestra, and Paderewski Symphony Orchestra at Chicago’s Symphony Center. He maintains an active concert career in the U.S. with over 100 performances to date, including a live broadcast recital at Chicago’s premiere classical music station 98.7 WFMT and “33 Variations,” an award-winning theater play based on Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations.
Originally from Poland, Lipinski won the Grand Prix and the First Prize at the Paderewski Competition for Young Pianists in Kasna Dolna, Poland. He visited the U.S. at the invitation of Kazimierz Braun, Professor of Theater at the University at Buffalo, to play a role of a pianist in “Paderewski’s Children,” a theater play about the life of Ignacy Jan Paderewski. He graduated from the Paderewski Music High School in Tarnow, Poland where he studied piano with Jaroslaw Iwaneczko.
Lipinski earned his Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and Musical Arts and Master of Music in Piano Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester where he studied piano under the tutelage of Douglas Humpherys. As a teaching assistant of Vincent Lenti and Tony Caramia, he received Eastman’s Teaching Assistant Prize for Excellence in Teaching. Lipinski continued his graduate studies at Northwestern University Bienen School of Music earning his Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance under the tutelage of Alan Chow.
Lipinski’s research interests focus on the history of recital programming featured in his DMA dissertation “From Liszt to Victor Borge: A Legacy of Unique Piano Performances.” Recognized for his own creative programming, Lipinski unified two of his lifetime passions, classical music and sleight-of-hand magic, in a recital program “Piano Illusions.” Originally developed for his honors senior thesis at Eastman, Lipinski collaborated on the program with Teller of Las Vegas duo Penn & Teller, eventually winning the WQXR Classical Comedy Contest at Caroline’s on Broadway. After his success in New York, Lipinski presented “Piano Illusions” at renowned concert series and festivals including Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation in Salt Lake City and Musica del Cuore Concert Series in Hong Kong.
Before joining the piano faculty at OU, Lipinski was a member of the piano faculty at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Learn more on his website: http://igorlipinski.com
