The Austin Troubadours will perform March 29 as part of Musical Bridges Around the World’s sixth annual International Music Festival. Causing heart attacks is not officially in the mission statement of Musical Bridges Around the World (MBAW), but its programming nearly caused a couple of them, according to founder Anya Grokhovski. The occasion was two classically trained musicians confronting their long-held stereotypes during a 2011 MBAW concert that mixed traditional European classical music with traditional Indian classical music. Just that both could be rightly termed “classical” shocked Grokhovski, and her Indian...

Armed with three degrees from Moscow’s Russian Academy of Music, concert pianist Anya Grokhovski arrived in the U.S. in 1989 and moved to San Antonio three years later for a position as a staff accompanist at UTSA. After bringing several Russian and European musicians to San Antonio for performances, Grokhovski launched an intimate series of house concerts that evolved into Musical Bridges Around the World (MBAW) — a multicultural arts nonprofit that aims to “unite people one concert at a time.” While possibly best recognized for its genre-spanning series Musical Evenings at San Fernando Cathedral, MBAW also reaches 50,000 students,...

From the music of medieval and Renaissance Europe, to American jazz, to the sounds of Japanese instruments, the 6th annual International Music Festival returns to the Alamo City from March 22 to 31. All performances are free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.mbaw.org or call (210) 464-1534. Friday, March 22 7 p.m. Empire Theatre “Persian Delight with an American Twist” Three-time Grammy Award-nominee Kayhan Kalhor, the world’s preeminent master of the kamancheh (four-stringed upright Persian fiddle), performs with Brooklyn Rider, the innovative string quartet praised for its “Beethoven-goes-indie foray into making...

International Music Festival Imports Worldly Talent for Free Concerts at San Antonio Landmarks Written By Bryan Rindfuss on Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 10:18 am from SA Current. Original article can be viewed by clicking here. Courtesy of International Music Festival Kayhan Kalhor Armed with three degrees from Moscow’s Russian Academy of Music, concert pianist Anya Grokhovski arrived in the U.S. in 1989 and moved to San Antonio three years later for a position as a staff accompanist at UTSA. After bringing several Russian and European musicians to San Antonio for performances, Grokhovski launched an intimate series of house concerts that evolved...

We are extremely excited to announce the judges for the 2020 Gurwitz International Piano Competition in San Antonio, TX! We are honored to have Maestro Sebastian Lang-Lessing – the Artistic Director of the San Antonio Symphony as Chairman of the Jury. The judges are internationally acclaimed artists such as Russian pianist Olga Kern – Gold Medalist of the XI Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, TX, first woman to win in more than thirty years; Israeli pianist Yaron Kohlberg , the newly appointed President of the Cleveland International Piano Competition in 2018, prize-winner of ten international piano...

“Art is value, not value added.” I heard this poignant phrase on the cusp of the 2016 United Nations General Assembly  in New York City, where diplomats, philanthropists, artists, and arts leaders from around the globe gathered at the Lincoln Center Global Exchange. They agreed: Art is a universal language that transcends politics, religion, socioeconomics, and ethnic boundaries. San Antonio is a city of complex histories reflected in its art and in the constitution of its people. We live in what I consider the “crossroads of the Americas,” the intersection of Interstate 10 from California to Florida and Interstate 35 from Mexico to Canada....

Musical Bridges reaches over 50,000 students annually in Title I schools through Kids to Concerts, a free community educational outreach program. Many guest artists of the 5th International Music festival also performed for San Antonio school children as part of this initiative. During the festival we also had Pingtan artists from our Friendship City – Suzhou, China perform at two festival concerts, as well as for 2000 students during Kids To Concerts. The two beautiful Pipa players did not speak English. In order to accommodate them, Jason Tatman a Chinese translator from Seattle joined us and shared: When we went to Criwald Road...