Piatigorsky founder to headline concert at LSUS
02/02/06

Cellist Evan Drachman, founder of the Piatigorsky Foundation and grandson of renowned cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, will perform cello masterpieces with pianist Lisa Bergman in a one-hour concert at 10:30 a.m. Thursday (Feb. 9) in the LSUS University Center Theater. The concert, sponsored by the James Smith Noel Collection, is free and open to the public.

For more than 15 years, the Piatigorsky Foundation’s commitment to artistic excellence and public outreach has fascinated many avid concert goers as well as curious first-timers. It is this combination of complimentary access, flamboyant performances and human warmth that makes Piatigorsky Foundation concerts so appealing to diverse audiences. The Foundation presented two tours in North Louisiana last year, with stops at LSUS as part of both tours playing to standing-room-only audiences.

Drachman has combined artistic talent with great personal compassion and warmth to create a distinctive musical career. As the founder, artistic director and president of the Piatigorsky Foundation, he has become one of the most respected authorities on the presentation of live classical music fir diverse audiences everywhere. A Boston, Mass., native, Drachman studied at the Peabody Conservatory, the New England Conservatory and the Curtis Institute of Music.

Bergman is a graduate of Julliard School, the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the University of Washington cum laude. She is the newly appointed executive director of the Icicle Creek Music Center and is artistic director of the Methow Music Festival in Winthrop, Wash. She is the founding artistic director of the Mostly Nordic Chamber Series in Seattle and hosts Sunday Morning Classics on KOHO Radio in Leavenworth, Wash.