MONTREAL – The esteemed Luba and Ireneus Zuk Piano Duo has been enchanting audiences across Canada, the United States, Europe and China with its brilliant presentation of contemporary composers for decades. Works commissioned from or dedicated to the duo by Ukrainian and Canadian composers, such as Lesia Dychko, George Fiala, Gary Kulesha, Henadiy Lashenko, Myroslav Skoryk and Donald Patriquin, along with works from the standard repertoire have been a consistent, engaging feature of the Zuk Piano Duo concert programs.
The warm response of audiences and the keen interest of international pianists in new works for two pianos have compelled Dr. Luba Zuk, a long-time piano professor at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music, to create a means for passing on this legacy to the next generation of pianists and composers: the Luba Zuk Piano Duo Composition Prize.
This annual prize of $2,500 is awarded by a faculty jury to an outstanding graduate or undergraduate student in composition at McGill’s Schulich School of Music who completes a work for piano duo. Among its mandatory conditions is that participants in the competition incorporate musical elements that reflect Ukrainian or Canadian experience into their opus.
The first recipient of the Luba Zuk Piano Duo Composition Prize was Doyoon Kim, a graduate student from South Korea, whose composition “Motanka” was performed on October 12, 2018, at the Tanna Schulich Concert Hall during the McGill Piano Homecoming 2018.
Impressed by the multicultural character of Montreal, Mr. Kim created a composition in which five fragments, like the colored thread used in the making of Ukrainian cloth dolls, or motanky, are readily discernable within a delightful, multi-layered texture in which a fragment of Mykola Leontovych’s “Shchedryk” is the easiest to recognize.
Undoubtedly, Dr. Zuk’s new approach to broadening the repertoire for two pianos by including new identifiable musical elements in the Canadian cultural mainstream will be studied by experts and will be appreciated by pianists in search of new content for their concert programs. For music lovers it will be interesting to hear how young composers perceive and use Ukrainian components in their creations.
It is worth noting that this is Dr. Zuk’s second contribution to building a strong legacy for great pianists of the future. In 2014 a generous lead donation by the Zuk family – Luba Zuk and her brothers Ireneus Zuk, pianist and professor at Queen’s University, and Radoslav Zuk, architect and professor at McGill University – established the Lubka Kolessa Piano Scholarship, which is awarded annually to an outstanding student entering her or his senior year of study at McGill University.
Kolessa (1902-1997), a native of Lviv and a graduate of the Vienna State Academy, was the pre-eminent piano performer of Europe in the inter-war period, playing with orchestras led by celebrated conductors like Karl Bohm, Herbert von Karajan, Erich Kleiber, Bruno Walter and Felix Weingartner. During World War II she relocated to Canada and taught piano in Ottawa, Toronto and at Montreal’s McGill University, as well as in New York. She also had several acclaimed recitals at Carnegie Hall, as well as grand concerts with orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic and the Toronto Symphony.