Ms. Ellina Blinder

Ellina Blinder, director of The International Chamber Music Festival and Institute, has been listening.

"He is an incredibly fantastic musician," she said.
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The International Chamber Music Festival and Institute is the brainchild of Ellina Blinder, an accomplished pianist in her own right who has been a music teacher at St. Mark's School since 1990.

With her musical connections and knowing that St. Mark's, with its Center for the Arts, has excellent facilities to host such a program, she put together a proposal for the festival and institute.

Ellina Blinder Artistic Director, Chamber Music Festival of New England

Ms. Blinder studied at Hartt School of Music, Hartford, CT and received her B.M. and M.M. in Piano Performance from the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, MA.Ellina was a 1st prizewinner of the Connecticut Young Artists Competition and the 2nd prizewinner in Massachusetts Young Pianists Competition.In 1983 Ellina was selected to participate in Tanglewood Festival in Lenox Mass. as well as Aspen Festival in Colorado.Ellina performed solo and chamber music in Gerona Festival in Spain as well as concerts in England and Russia.Her chamber music collaborations included the members of Concertgebouw Orchestra and Boston Pops.Together with Lilia Muchnik, violin, Ellina performs frequently as a Boston Duo.

Together with the pianist Ellina Blinder Lilia performs frequently as a Boston Duo.

Performing in this ensemble will be Alexey Shabalin, violin, Ying-Jun Wei, cello, Thomas Parchman, clarinet and Ellina Blinder, piano.
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Ellina Blinder is an Artistic Director of Chamber Music Foundation of New England.

The concert will be followed by a Wine and Hors d'Oeuvres reception.

Neither pianist Ellina Blinder nor violinist Lilia Muchnik knew each other before they moved to the United States.
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Blinder, from Yalta, started playing piano at 5, but wanted to - and still wants to - play the cello.They first met through a mutual acquaintance.Then, in 1995, decided to play together, resulting in the Boston Duo.To date, they have two CDs under their collective belts: one of six Bach sonatas, and more recently, "Violin and Piano Duets" (both on the classical recording Company label), featuring music both old - Gluck, Veracini - and relatively new - Schnitke, Kreisler - and offbeat - a tango by Piazzolla, some "classical blues" by Frolov.Besides regular performances together, Muchnik teaches at the New England Conservatory of Music, and Blinder teaches at Saint Mark's School in Southborough.
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Blinder: I met Lilia a very long time ago, but wasn't working with her.
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Blinder: Probably when I was about 12 or 13.
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Blinder: You're constantly improving yourself, so it's mostly a constant struggle with yourself.

It's kind of strange to hear straight classical music on the second CD, then suddenly hear some blues and the tango.How did that happen?

Blinder: I like to improvise.
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Blinder: I have mostly high school students, and some private students.
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Blinder: We're inviting another musician - Suzanne Polk, a cellist from Newton - to play the Ravel trio with us.
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Blinder: Unfortunately, the Boston Trio name is taken (laughs).

Ellina Blinder

Artistic Director of St. Mark's International Chamber Music Festival, piano,- Ellina Blinder received her education at Hartt School of Music and New England Conservatory of Music, where she completed Bachelors and Masters Degrees.She was a First Prize winner of the Connecticut Young Artists Competition and the 2nd Prize winner in Massachusetts Young Pianists Competition.In 1983 Ms. Blinder was selected to participate in the Tanglewood Music Festival and the Aspen Music Festival.She performed solo and chamber music in Gerona Festival in Spain as well as in England and Russia.She has collaborated in chamber music with members of Concertgebouw Orchestra and Boston Pops.She performs frequently with violinist Lilia Muchnik as the Boston Duo.In 2004, Ms. Blinder was appointed an artistic director of the newly formed Chamber Music Foundation of New England, an organization that focuses on promoting chamber music in all levels by forming collaborations between students, amateur musicians and professional musicians.She teaches piano and chamber music both privately and at St.Marks School.

For further information, about the chamber music program, please contact Festival Director, Ellina Blinder, 508-786-6309 or >.

Ellina Blinder is Artistic Director of the festival; Tatyana Dudochkin is Artistic Director of the competition.