Internationally known pianist Ilya Shmukler will perform a recital featuring music from Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Schubert, Franz Liszt and Robert Schumann on Saturday in the E. Desmond and Mary Ann Lee Theater at the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center. (Photo courtesy of Polaris Management)

One of the rising young stars of the piano world will be performing on stage at the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center this week.

Ilya Shmukler, winner of the prestigious Concours Géza Anda piano competition earlier this year in Zurich, Switzerland, is set to play a two-hour recital beginning at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday in the E. Desmond and Mary Ann Lee Theater. The University of Missouri–St. Louis Department of Music is sponsoring the free performance.

Teaching Professor Alla Voskoboynikova, the director of keyboard studies at UMSL, is responsible for bringing Shmukler to campus.

She first encountered Shmukler, a 29-year-old Russian-born pianist now living in Kansas City, when she heard him play in 2022 Artist Presentation Society Auditions in St. Louis, where Shmukler was a winner, and then in the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, where he was a finalist. She wound up inviting him to be a guest artist at UMSL’s annual summer keyboard camp in 2023, and he gave a masterclass to camp participants and also performed during the weeklong camp.

Voskoboynikova has maintained contact with Shmukler ever since and arranged Saturday’s recital.

“I thought it would be great to have Ilya Shmukler on campus and in the St. Louis community,” Voskoboynikova said. “He’s a very well-known name among pianists, piano teachers and music lovers. So, it would be wonderful for our students and community members to hear him, too. He’s young. His career is just blossoming, and it’s exciting to see what the future brings him.”

His biggest achievement to date came in June at the Concours Géza Anda, the triennial competition founded in 1979 in memory of Hungarian pianist Géza Anda. It aims to identify and promote young pianists who can pass on the musical spirit of Anda, and the winners receive three years of concert management courtesy of the Géza Anda Foundation.

“It is probably one of the toughest competitions regarding repertoire,” Shmukler said. “One of the challenges there is you have to prepare more than six hours repertoire for one of your performing days. The competition lasts about 10 days. If you’re lucky enough, you have to play four rounds. You don’t exactly know what you are going to perform, so you prepare three programs. The jury members would decide which one program you are going to perform. So, it is incredibly challenging.”

Shmukler said most pianists begin preparing a year in advance for the competition. He was originally reluctant to enter this year and had to be talked into giving it a shot by members of his family and his teacher, Stanislav Ioudenitch, a professor and the artistic director at Park University’s International Center for Music in Kansas City. By the time Shmukler entered, he only had about three months to get ready.

Even with that condensed schedule, he was ready to impress the jury, which included standouts in the piano world such as Martha Argerich, Robert Levin, Rico Gulda and Lucas Debargue, among others.

Not only did Shmukler win the top overall prize, but he received the Audience Prize, the Mozart Prize, the Special Prize of the Hungarian Radio Arts Groups, and the Junior Jury Award. The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described Shmukler as a “volcano” and said, “the name of Ilya Shmukler should be remembered.”

His career has slowly been building toward this point since his parents first got him started in music lessons when he was 3, though they themselves were not musicians. It started to pick up speed when he won his first piano competition at age 10, earning him acceptance into an international summer academy and bringing him exposure to the music world like never before. He started to imagine that as his future.

Shmukler gave his first recital when he was 12 and made his orchestral debut two years later. He went on to study at the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory.

As his career has progressed, he’s given solo performances in both Europe and North America and collaborated with Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich, Musikkollegium Winterthur, the Mariinsky, Fort Worth Symphony, Sendai Philharmonic, Kansas City Chamber, Bayer-Symphoniker and New Music Orchestras.

Five years ago, he moved to Kansas City to study with Ioudenitch, whom he’d first connected with over social media. Under Ioudenitch’s tutelage, he has taken top prize at a number of international piano competitions, including the Wideman Piano Competition in Shreveport, Louisiana; the Lewisville Lake Symphony International Competition in Lewisville, Texas; the Shigeru Kawai International Piano Competition in Tokyo; and the Artist Presentation Society in St. Louis. Shmukler received the award for “Best Performance of a Mozart Concerto,” at the 2022 Van Cliburn in Fort Worth, Texas. On Dec. 13, 2022, he won the Carnegie Weill Recital Hall Debut Audition and gave his inaugural performance at the famed New York venue.

Winning the Concours Géza Anda figures to open up even more opportunities in the future.

“Winning Géza Anda means that you already receive three years management under the foundation, which is seeking and looking for concerts or any other performing opportunities,” Shmukler said. “They consult you regarding different aspects of career. It is crucial and vital, and it really helps to build up your strategies regarding your future. It is not only about concerts. It is planning your future and what you want to do – regarding recording sessions, regarding social media, what your targets are. These are all complex tasks and goals. That’s why all pianists dream of winning big piano competitions, because it brings opportunities in your life.”

Right now, Shmukler has been getting ready for Saturday’s performance, which will include works from Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Schubert, Franz Liszt and Robert Schumann. He aims to show the connection between all the German and Austrian composers and how the work of one influenced the next.

He’s also eager to be on stage at the Touhill.

“It’s wonderful,” Shmukler said. “There are actually several halls, and I love all of them. The pianos – which is the most important – are wonderful. The music department is great. I’m so much looking forward to coming and playing, and the program will be diverse, and I hope quite bright, and I hope people will enjoy it.”