Sheila Swartzman, Vladimir Bochkarev, and Jan Puckett at the first MBAW concert at Sheila’s house in 1998. A History by Anya Grokhovski, DMA, MBAW CEO, Founder & Artistic Director Soon after moving to the US from the USSR, I came to Texas with my then-husband, Valeri Grokhovski and my six-year-old son Arseni. Valeri was working as a professor of piano at the University of Texas at San Antonio and having studied piano performance myself at the Gnessin State University in Moscow, I was hired as a staff accompanist at UTSA. In 1998, I decided to invite my favorite professor Vladimir Bochkarev from Russia to visit San Antonio and share my...