Hailed by The New York Times as a pianist of “a fiery sensibility and warm touch,” ANNA SHELEST is an international award-winning artist who has thrilled audiences throughout the world.

A champion of esoteric repertoire, Anna has, since 2017, been collaborating with the legendary conductor Neeme Järvi to record rare works for piano and orchestra. Their complete set of Anton Rubinstein’s piano concerti has been released to great acclaim, praised by the American Record Guide as “Easily the top choices now for these two concertos [#1 & #2]” and Gramophone for “power and agility, effortless effect, nuanced and incisive all round [#4 and Caprice Russe]. Maestro Järvi’s and Anna’s live concert recording with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra of Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto and Cecile Chaminade’s Konzertstuck is set for a near-future release.

The 2019 release of “Donna Voce,” a survey of music by women composers from the last three centuries, has become Anna’s ongoing musical project that includes live performances, lectures and videos, as well as a 2024 sequel album - “Donna Voce II,” featuring Fanny Mendelssohn’s monumental piano cycle Das Jahr (“The Year”).

Anna regularly performs with her husband Dmitri as the Shelest Piano Duo, and have produced over 100 episodes for their YouTube channel “Shelest at the Piano.” Praised for their “stirring performances of rare repertory” (Fanfare), the duo traces its roots to music school in Kharkiv, Ukraine. At their 2018 Carnegie Hall debut, the duo’s CD release of “Ukrainian Rhapsody”brought renewed attention to the music of their homeland. Anna and Dmitri, who met as classmates in middle school, began performing together after their marriage in the United States. Their inventive programs brought them to a broad array of venues from concert stages to state functions, and in the words of Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, “realized diplomacy through music.”

Anna made her orchestral debut at the age of twelve with the Kharkiv Symphony Orchestra and has, subsequently, appeared as soloist with many distinguished orchestras, among them the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and Estonian National Symphony Orchestra. In recital and concerto performances, she has been heard in New York City’s Stern Auditorium and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Alice Tully Hall, Washington, DC’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes and Austria’s Wiener Konzerthaus.

A native of Ukraine, Anna received her early music education at the Kharkiv Special Music School. She received her Masters Degree from The Juilliard School in New York City, where she studied with Jerome Lowenthal.

Anna Shelest makes her home in New York City with her husband and two sons.

www.annashelest.com

BACH, J.S.

Concerto #1 in d, BWV 1052

BEETHOVEN

Concerto #4 in G, Op. 58
Fantasia in c, Op. 80 ("Choral Fantasy")

BORTKIEWICZ, Serhiy

Concerto #1 in B-flat, Op. 16

CHAMINADE

Konzertstuck, Op. 40 (1888)

GERSHWIN

Concerto in F
Rhapsody in Blue

LEMBA, Artur 

Concerto #2 in e, Op. 17

LISZT 

Totentanz

MOZART

Concerto #11 in F, K. 413
Concerto #21 in C, K. 467
Concerto #23 in A, K. 488
Concerto #24 in c, K. 491

POULENC

Concerto in c-sharp (1949)
Concerto for 2 Pianos

PROKOFIEV

Concerto #1 in D-flat, Op. 10
Concerto #2 in g, Op. 16

RACHMANINOFF

Concerto #1 in f-sharp, Op. 1 (rev. 1917)
Concerto #2 in c, Op. 18
Concerto #3 in d, Op. 30
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini , Op. 43

RUBINSTEIN

Caprice Russe, Op. 102
Concerto #1 in e, Op. 25
Concerto #2 in F, Op. 35
Concerto #3 in G, Op. 45
Concerto #4 in d, Op. 70
Concerto #5 in E-flat, Op. 94

SAINT-SAËNS

Concerto #2 in g, Op. 22

SCHUMANN, Clara

Concerto in a, Op. 7

SHOSTAKOVICH

Concerto #1 in c, Op. 35
Concerto #2 in F, Op. 102

STRAUSS

Burleske in d

TCHAIKOVSKY

Concerto #1 in b-flat, Op. 23

	ANTON RUBINSTEIN Piano Concerto #1 in e, Op. 25 Piano Concerto #2 in F, Op.35 Neeme Järvi/Estonian National Symphony Orchestra 2 Pièces caractéristiques, Op. 50 Music & Arts: MACD 1308
	“DONNA VOCE” Fanny Mendelssohn: Sonata in g Amy Beach: Ballade, Op. 6 Amy Beach: Four Sketches, Op. 15 (Phantoms, Dreaming) Clara Schumann: Scherzo, Op. 14 Cecile Chaminade: Les Sylvains Cecile Chaminade: Concert Etudes, Op. 35 (Automne, Scherzo) Lili Boulanger: Prelude in D-flat Chia-Yu Hsu: Rhapsody Toccata Sorel Classics: SC CD 015
	ANTON RUBINSTEIN Piano Concerto #3 in G, Op. 45 Piano Concerto #5 in E-flat, Op. 94 Neeme Järvi/Estonian National Symphony Orchestra Sorel Classics: SC CD 014
	ANTON RUBINSTEIN Piano Concerto #4 in d, Op. 70 Caprice Russe, Op. 102 Neeme Järvi/The Orchestra Now Sorel Classics: SC CD 013
	PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto #1 in D-flat, Op. 10 Piano Concerto #2 in g, Op. 16 Niels Muus/Janácek Philharmonic Orchestra Sorel Classics: SC CD 006
	“SPIRIT & ROMANCE” Bach/Busoni: Chaconne Liszt: Sonetto 104 del Petrarca Schubert/Liszt: Gretchen am Spinnrade Wagner/Liszt: Isoldes Liebestod Schumann: Piano Sonata 31 in f-sharp, Op. 11 Sorel Classics: SC CD 001
	“PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION” Glinka/Balakirev: The Lark Tchaikovsky: Romance in f, Op. 5 Tchaikovsky: Valse in A-flat, Op. 40, #8 Tchaikovsky: Romance in F, Op. 51, #5 Tchaikovsky: Valse in f-sharp, Op. 40, #9 Tchaikovsky: Nocturne in F, Op. 10, #1 Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition Sorel Classics: SC CD 007

Donna Voce ( Woman’s voice) is a virtuosic piano program that puts listeners up close and personal with female composers of the last three centuries. By sharing their compelling life stories and wide ranging oeuvre, Anna Shelest makes the case for the power of this music to capture hearts and minds of today’s listeners.

Recital Presentation:
https://www.annashelest.com/donna-voce-project

Anna Shelest brought a fiery sensibility and warm touch to the piano solo of Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, whose theme evokes the famous melody of his Ninth Symphony. Soloist and orchestra collaborated effectively for an energetic rendition that highlighted the improvisatory character of the work.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

RUBINSTEIN Piano Concerto No. 4
The conductor launches into the first-movement introduction at a faster than usual clip, while Shelest sails through her introductory cadenza with bracing confidence and not a single splinter or vagary in those massive chords. Her forward-moving phrasing and flexibility are exactly what this burly music demands. The pianist’s tone opens up in the cadenza, where even a home listener gets a sense of how her melodic projection extends out towards the venue’s proverbial peanut gallery. If anything, the tumultuous finale showcases Shelest’s power and agility operating at more inspired capacity, tossing out runs, leaps and octave surges to effortless effect.

GRAMOPHONE

Anna Shelest delivers a powerhouse performance in the new release, Anton Rubinstein Piano Concerto No. 4. The Rubinstein Concerto No. 4 is gargantuan and Shelest is simply brilliant in her navigation of this iconic 19th-century Russian’s work. She captures the rich beauty of all Rubinstein’s melodies, both broad orchestral statements and intimate piano utterances. Conductor Neeme Järvi brings his extraordinary skill to the podium to direct the energies released by the music. The CD also includes Rubinstein’s Caprice Russe whose strong national folk content stands in contrast to the more European flavour of the concerto. It’s a thrilling live recording.

THE WHOLE NOTE MAGAZINE

It was a great pleasure to present Anna Shelest to my Topeka Symphony audience. We performed Clara Schumann's Piano Concerto and Cecile Chaminade's Konzertstuck, two neglected works by women that make a terrific programming combination. Anna plays beautifully, and it was a wonderful and easy collaboration. One of my violinists said, ‘I've never heard an artist make a piano sparkle like Anna does!’ The audience loved both pieces, and many people asked why they've never heard them before.

KYLE WILEY PICKETT, MUSIC DIRECTOR
TOPEKA SYMPHONY

A new piano duo on the scene is the Ukrainian-born, and now New York-based couple, Anna and Dmitri Shelest. Shelest Piano Duo have released their first recording, TUTTI, with substantial standard repertoire items. Among the disc’s highlights are Liszt’s own arrangement of his Les Préludes played with consistent brilliance and sensitivity through to its magnificent conclusion. Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony Allegro is an impressive display of melody and countermelody beautifully balanced and phrased. [In Ravel’s La Valse], the Shelests capture the chaos and complexity familiar in the orchestral version and bring it to a stunning finish.”

THE WHOLE NOTE MAGAZINE

Anna Shelest has not only won me over with her astoundingly dexterous and emotive pianism, but has truly proved herself a whiz at programming her albums. Even if her newest CD, Donna Voce, was not a collection of piano solos by female composers who deserve as much attention as their male contemporaries, I would have been impressed. Certainly Fanny Mendelssohn (represented by a firecracker rendition of her Sonata in G Minor) and Clara Schumann (a buttery, melodiousScherzo No. 2 in C Minor) have made the rounds these days, but that has more to do with their relationships to Felix and Robert. While Shelest’s powerful accounts of these pieces is worth the price of admission, the other represented women [Cécile Chaminade, Amy Beach, Lili Boulanger, Chia-Yu Hsu] are eye-openers.

STAGE AND CINEMA

6/21/2023 (7pm)	ESTONIAN NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Neeme Järvi, conductor Estonia Concert Hall (Tallinn) C. Schumann: Piano Concerto Chaminade: Konzertstuck Poulenc: Concerto for 2 Pianos with Dmitri Shelest, pianist
8/3/2023 (4pm)	VENTFORT HALL MANSION & GILDED AGE MUSEUM (Lenox, MA) Beach: Summer Dreams Chaminade: 6 Pièces romantiques Skoryk: 3 Extravagant Dances Barber: Souvenirs (Hesitation Tango) Gershwin/Levine: Rhapsody in Blue with Shelest Piano Duo
8/12/2023 (8pm)	THE SEDGEWOOD CLUB (Carmel, NY) The Boathouse Lysenko/Revutsky: Overture to the Opera Taras Bulba Beach: Summer Dreams (4 mvts.) Gottschalk: La Jota Aragonesa (Caprice espagnol) Almashi: Carpathian Song Skoryk: 3 Extravagant Dances Bernstein/Harmon: Overture to Candide Bortkiewicz: Folk Melodies & Dances Gershwin/Levine: Rhapsody in Blue with Shelest Piano Duo
9/23/2023 (7:30pm)	MADISON SOUNDS: TOGETHER FOR UKRAINE Madison Avenue Baptist Church (NYC) Skoryk: 3 Extravagant Dances Gershwin/Levine: Rhapsody in Blue with Shelest Piano Duo
10/6/2023 (6pm)	COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY (NY) Grace Auditorium Bernstein/Harmon: Overture to Candide Beach: Summer Dreams (4 mvts.) Skoryk: 3 Extravagant Dances Bortkiewicz: Folk Melodies & Dances Copland/Lerner: Variations on a Shaker Melody Gershwin/Levine: Rhapsody in Blue with Shelest Piano Duo
10/10/2023 (6:30pm)	PIANO EVENING WITH DAVID DUBAL Grace & St. Paul’s Church (NYC) Gottschalk: La Jota Aragonesa (Caprice espagnol) Beach: Summer Dreams Copland/Lerner: Variations on a Shaker Melody Bernstein/Harmon: Overture to Candide with Shelest Piano Duo
11/18/2023 (7pm)	UKRAINIAN CULTURAL FESTIVAL Faust Harrison Pianos (NYC) Bortkiewicz: piano works
1/29/2024 (7:30pm)	FLORIDA KEYS CONCERT ASSOCIATION Marathon High School Performing Arts Center Lysenko/Revutsky: Overture to the Opera Taras Bulba Beach: Summer Dreams Gottschalk: La Jota Aragonesa (Caprice espagnol) Copland/Lerner: Variations on a Shaker Melody Skoryk: 3 Extravagant Dances Bernstein/Harmon: Candide (overture) Bortkiewicz: Folk Melodies & Dances Gershwin/Levine: Rhapsody in Blue with Shelest Piano Duo
1/30/2024 (7:30pm)	FLORIDA KEYS CONCERT ASSOCIATION Coral Shores High School Auditorium (Tavernier) Lysenko/Revutsky: Overture to the Opera Taras Bulba Beach: Summer Dreams Gottschalk: La Jota Aragonesa (Caprice espagnol) Copland/Lerner: Variations on a Shaker Melody Skoryk: 3 Extravagant Dances Bernstein/Harmon: Candide (overture) Bortkiewicz: Folk Melodies & Dances Gershwin/Levine: Rhapsody in Blue with Shelest Piano Duo
2/1/2024 (4pm)	MOORINGS PARK (Naples, FL) Bower Chapel Bernstein/Harmon: Candide (overture) Bortkiewicz: Folk Melodies & Dances Beach: from Summer Dreams Skoryk: 3 Extravagant Dances Copland/Lerner: Variations on a Shaker Melody Gershwin/Levine: Rhapsody in Blue with Shelest Piano Duo
3/26/2024 (5:30pm)	PIANO EVENINGS WITH DAVID DUBAL (NYC) Grace & St. Paul’s Church Franck: Prelude, Fugue & Variation with Shelest Piano Duo C. Schumann: Piano Concerto with Dmitri Shelest, secondo
4/13/2024 (7pm)	DULUTH SUPERIOR SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (MN) Dirk Meyer, conductor Symphony Hall, Duluth Entertainment Convention Center C. Schumann: Piano Concerto
6/22-29/2024	RISING STAR PIANO CAMP (Pittsfield, MA)
9/16/2024 (7pm)	KIMBALL FARMS LIFECARE RETIREMENT COMMUNITY (Lenox, MA) with Shelest Piano Duo
11/9/2024 (7:30pm)	SPRINGFIELD SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (OH) Peter Stafford Wilson, conductor Kuss Auditorium, Clark State Community College PAC C. Schumann: Piano Concerto Chaminade: Konzertstuck

Shelest Piano Duo