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Lake Forest, Ill.— Lake Forest College is pleased to welcome back to campus Lukas Vondracek, the sixteen-year-old virtuoso pianist from the Czech Republic. Vondracek will perform in the Lily Reid Holt Memorial Chapel on Sunday, October 12 at 2 p.m. Vondracek’s performance, his fifth at the College, is open to the public and is free of charge. The Lily Reid Holt Memorial Chapel is located on the College’s Middle Campus near the intersection of College and Sheridan roads. For more information please call 847-735-6010. Lukas Vondracek began studying piano at the age of two, and made his first public performance at the age of four. By the age of nine, after performing solo recitals for several years, he began playing concertos and has since appeared with some of the finest symphony orchestras throughout the world. At fourteen, Vondracek met Maestro Vladimir Ashkenazy who was so profoundly impressed by his talent and accomplishments, that he volunteered to become his pro bono teacher. Since that time, Vondracek has worked with Ashkenazy as his principal tutor, and performs frequently as soloist with the Czech Philharmonic and other renowned ensembles under Ashkenazy’s baton. “ The hit of the evening was the 16-year-old Czech wunderkind pianist, Lukas Vondracek. Musically there's not much to the score, (Prokofiev 1) but its demonic bravura writing is made to order for a pianist of his virtuosic technique and temperament. Ashkenazy and the orchestra had all they could do just keeping up with this young man's flying fingers. The conductor-who is, let us not forget, a formidable Prokofiev pianist himself-retired to the sidelines to be flabbergasted with the rest of us while Vondracek tossed off Mikhail Pletnev's knuckle-busting arrangement of the Apotheosis from Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" as an encore. One can only imagine what this uncommonly talented pianist can do once he's out of his teens.” March 9, 2003, John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune “ We can celebrate a pianist who plays with such natural confidence, with so little inhibition, and with such ingeniousness…. In sharing with the audience his own sense of pleasure in and discovery of the music, Vondracek demonstrated exactly the point of concerts – communication of spontaneity possible only in real time, in a single place, the endless recreation of art by performance. If he devotes himself solely to the piano, then his talent, technique, love of music, and powerful advocates will ensure Vondracek becoming one of the world’s great pianists.” November 13, 2002, Ying Chang, The Classical Source (London) For more information about Lukas Vondracek visit http://www.lukasvondracek.co.uk/ Lake Forest College is a private, liberal arts institution located 30 miles north of downtown Chicago. The College has 1,330 students representing 46 states and 50 other countries.
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