Hanukkah Miracle Concert 2023

Join us for our Hanukkah Miracle Concert for Israel featuring the following performers:

Dr. Anna Balakerskaia is a “consistently thrilling pianist” (Judy Gruber, Washington Post) whose expression “wells with a delightful freedom,” (Robert Dumm, Clavier) and whose sound “is warm and deep.” (Elaine Fine, American Record Guide) Indeed, the legendary Russian violinist and conductor, Viktor Tretyakov, writes this about Dr. Balakerskaia: “A unique, almost extrasensory feeling of ensemble, excellent pianism, a radiant personality – that is [Anna] Balakerskaia!” As the three-time prizewinner of the Best Accompanist Diploma at the International Tchaikovsky Competition, her career has brought her to some of today’s greatest concert halls, including Carnegie Hall in New York City, the Teatro Colon in Buenos-Aires, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and the Salle Gaveau in Paris, among many others. Dr. Balakerskaia is a founding member of the “Ensemble da Camera of Washington”, a trio of musicians from Brazil, Germany and Russia, based in Washington, D.C.  Dr. Balakerskaia is the founder of her own concert series, “Anna and Friends”, regularly held at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. Dr. Balakerskaia has had a distinct teaching caree r, serving on the faculties of the St. Petersburg and Moscow conservatories. She currently is in her eighteenth-year teaching at George Mason University, where she is Term Professor of Piano and Chamber Music. Dr. Balakerskaia received her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance, Pedagogy and Chamber Music from St. Petersburg State Conservatory.

Gersh Chervinsky is a professional concert violinist and violin teacher based in Rockville, Maryland. He is the second-award winner of the Cremona Festival and Competition (Italy, 2012), and was a participant in the London Purcell School Music Festival (England, 2013), and the Keshet Eilon Festival (Israel, 2019). Gersh collaborates with the Washington Bach Consort, Alexandria Symphony Orchestra, and the Apollo Orchestra as the Associate Concertmaster. Trained at the Moscow Conservatory, Jacobs School of Music, and Peabody Institute of Music, he exhibits the finest traditions of modern and baroque violin playing. Gersh is an enthusiastic educator with extensive teaching experience. He has taught college students at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music as an associate instructor of violin. Currently, he is a string faculty member at The European Academy of Arts and maintains his private studio in Rockville, MD. He has performed with star musicians such as Joshua Bell, Norman Kreeger, Sarah Daneshpour, Amit Peled and others. 

Lora Ferguson retired from the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra after holding the position of Assistant Principal Clarinet since 1980.  She currently teaches at Levine Music and at her home studio. She was the clarinetist with the Capitol Woodwind Quintet as well as with several other chamber groups; music faculty positions included those at George Mason University, George Washington University, and Duke Ellington School of the Arts.

Dasha Gabay received her Bachelor of Arts Degree from M. Mussorgsky Music College in St. Petersburg, Russia. Ms. Gabay then went on to study Directing at St. Petersburg Cultural Institute. Her education was continued at the St. Petersburg Conservatory where she received her Master of Music Degree in piano performance, chamber music, pedagogy and accompaniment (collaborative arts). Throughout her concert career she had performed in some of the great halls of Russia, including the Great Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Chamber Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Capella as well as others throughout St. Petersburg. As an accompanist she had performed in many All-Russian and International competitions, where she has been awarded "The Best Accompaniment Diploma" three times (1995, 1997, and 1998). Ms. Gabay immigrated to the United States in December of 1998. She has been a faculty member of the Levine Music since 1999 and in addition maintains a private studio in Fairfax Station, VA. Ms. Gabay has already performed extensively throughout Washington D.C. area as accompanist. She has performed in such halls as; Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, The Lyceum and the Harris Theater of George Mason University among others.

William Hurd, violin, is an active chamber musician and teacher in the Washington DC area. Since 2001, William has been a member of the United States Air Force Strings and has performed numerous times at the White House, Vice President’s Residence, State Department, Kennedy Center, and Grand Ole Opry.  William enjoys teaching children ages 4-18 as a Suzuki violin instructor at Levine Music and at the Herdon Suzuki School and has previously served on the faculty of the Sunderman Conservatory of Music at Gettysburg College.  William holds degrees from the New England Conservatory of music, has participated and performed at workshops hosted by the Juilliard and Emerson String Quartets, and has received Suzuki teacher training at institutes in the U.S. and Canada.

Pianist Irina Kats enjoys a career as a teacher, soloist, chamber musician and accompanist. Ms. Kats' career began in her native Russia, where she graduated with honors, studying with the great pianist and teacher Vasily Pavlov, from the Astrakhan Conservatory and the Kazan Post-Graduate Music School. During her time in Russia, Ms. Kats was an active piano performer with a broad repertoire that included classical, romantic and contemporary masterpieces of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt Moussorgsky, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev. In 1996, Ms. Kats came to the United States where she taught privately before taking a position at Levine Music in Washington, DC in 1998. Since joining Levine's piano faculty, she has resumed her performance career as a chamber musician and accompanist, performing throughout the Northeast region of the United States. She has collablorated with such musicians as Slovakian sopranos Eva Blagove and Sisa Sclovsk, chellist John Gevorkian, horn soloist Eric Rusk and baritone Jerome Barry in such venues as the Austrian Slovakian Embassies, The Lyceum in Alexandria, VA and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Paul Alan Levi's music is described as "uninhibited emotional expression...skillful instrumentation" (New York Times), "quite sensuous" (Boston Herald), and "compelling and dynamic" (Ledger-Star, Norfolk, VA). His many works written for chorus, solo voice, piano, chamber ensembles, and orchestra feature a combination of lyricism, drama, intelligence, and energy, often with an underlying or overt sense of humor. He has a taste for quirky and unusual texts for his choral and vocal works, including the prose of Mark Twain, works of poets Robert Burns, Sally Fisher, Randall Jarrell, Toni Mergentime Levi and others, as well as passages from the Old Testament and Holocaust writings. He is also the composer of the iconic PBS logo that ran for twelve years, 1972-1984. His recent works include: Light at Play for orchestra, Venetian Mazes for solo piano, Dateless Calendar for chorus and chamber ensemble, Second String Quartet, and, Ebullience for solo piano. Levi writes, “I try to compose with a comedian’s sense of timing, even in non-comedic works. I think of my music as a gift to a community consisting of the composer, the performers, and the listener.” Like many composers, Mr. Levi has written memorial works, but also has composed a piece celebrating birth, In the Womb, for chorus with electronic accompaniment. His most significant works, both for chorus, orchestra, and soloists, include the comedic Mark Twain Suite as well as his gripping and dramatic Passover Oratorio, Dayenu, both premiered in Carnegie Hall.

Ian Pomerantz, praised for his versatility, the “especially brilliant” (Arts Fuse) “luminous bass-baritone” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), baroque musician, scholar, and cantorial soloist  is “the possessor of a remarkable instrument naturally at home in many genres.” Ian is a passionate storyteller, serving diverse communities in the present through the music of the past. A specialist in the Baroque bass repertoire and an expert in the performance of secular, religious, art, and folk music from the Jewish Diaspora, Ian has been a soloist with The Washington Bach Consort, The Boston Early Music Festival Opera, Byron Schenkman & Friends, Blue Hill Bach, The Handel and Haydn Society, Cantata Singers, Master-works Chorale, The City Choir of Washington, The Cambridge Chorus, and many more. Ian can also be heard in the role of Pan in Bach’s secular cantata Geschwinde, geschwinde, ihr wirbelnden Winde in the recording “Myths  Contested” with Washington Bach Consort, and in his solo debut recording Art Songs of the Jewish Diaspora, both on the ACIS label. A respected scholar of Sephardic Jewish music, Ian has authored multiple articles on the subject in English and Ladino, the language of the Sephardic Jews. He has a wide range of publications that includes a history of the Sephardic choral music tradition and reflections on antisemitism in the field of historical performance. Ian is an emerging leader in the American Jewish community and a devoted mentor to young learners of Sephardic language, music, and culture. He holds degrees from Longy School of Music of Bard College and Westminster Choir College, and currently writing his dissertation in Jewish n at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations at the Sorbonne, Paris and studies cantorial arts at Abraham Geiger Kolleg in Potsdam, Germany.

Cellist Vasily Popov keeps an active concert schedule, having performed both as a soloist and a member of chamber ensembles in the world's finest concert halls in Europe, Japan and the United States. Mr.Popov has been awarded prizes and diplomas in a number of national and international competitions. Born in St-Petersburg, Russia into a musical family, Vasily started playing the cello at the age of seven.  After performing in the St.-Petersburg Philharmonic orchestra under Maestro Yuri Temirkanov, he moved to Germany to complete his Artist Diploma in Munich. Currently living in Washington DC, Mr. Popov serves on the faculty of the Levine School of Music and is artistic director and conductor of the Levine Chamber Orchestra.

Noah Pan Stier, 17, has been playing violin since the age of three. He is a senior at the Maret School. His violin teacher is June Huang, and his chamber coach is Irina Kats. Noah performs in the Washington, DC, area as a soloist, and as a chamber musician. He is currently a member of the NSO Youth Fellowship program and co-concertmaster of the Philharmonic at the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra. As a soloist, Noah has won first-place prizes in the Senior, Intermediate, and Junior Divisions of the Cogen Concerto Competition and the Marlin-Engel Solo Competition. He also has won first place in the NVMTA Concerto Competition, the Asian-American Music Society Competition, the Feder Memorial String Competition, the Concert Artists International Maestro Competition, the Vivo International Youth Competition, and the YMIC Metropolitan Music Festival. Noah previously performed in a piano duo with Madeline Xu, Mano a Mano. In 2019, they won second place in the Junior Division of the Misbin Family Memorial Chamber competition. In 2017-2018, Noah and Madeline were in the John S. Martin Trio with cellist Julian Naimon. The trio won first place in the Junior Division of the 2018 Misbin Family Memorial Chamber Competition and the 2017 YMIC Metropolitan Chamber Festival, as well as second place in the Chamber Division of the 2018 Enkor International Competition. In 2016-2017, Noah performed in a piano duo with Andrew Wu, Duo X, which won first place in the Junior Division of the 2017 Misbin Family Memorial Chamber Competition and the 2016 YMIC Metropolitan Chamber Festival. As the winner of the 2018 DC Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition, he debuted as a soloist with the orchestra in November 2018, playing the first movement of Symphonie Espagnole by Edouard Lalo. He spent ten days in Riva del Garda, Italy, performing with the Youth Orchestra in the summer of 2018. Noah has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage and Terrace Theatre , the National Gallery of Art, the Strathmore Mansion, and the embassies of France, the Netherlands and Austria.

100% of ticket sales will be donated to the Israel Crisis Relief Fund of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington.

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