Oksana Lutsyshyn

Oksana Lutsyshyn was born in the city of Lviv, Ukraine. She began studying music at the age of eight and at twelve she entered the Special Music School in Lviv. Upon graduating from this school, she moved to Moscow, Russia, where she entered the Moscow State Conservatory, completing both her graduate and post-graduate degrees. After moving to the United States, she was Visiting Scholar at the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington. She is presently on the music faculty at Old Dominion University, where she teaches Piano and Music Theory. She also serves as Artistic Co-Director of the Norfolk Chamber Consort.

Lutsyshyn has appeared in concerts as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the former Soviet Union, Europe, the United States, and South America. She gave her New York debut in the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and a Chicago debut in the Preston Bradley Hall at Chicago Cultural Center. Locally, she has performed with the Virginia International Arts Festival, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Ludwig F. Diehn Concert Series, as well as numerous other concert presenters. Lutsyshyn won Second Prize at the Vienna Modern Masters Third International Performers’ Recording Awards Competition. She was also a prizewinner at the William Kapell International Piano Competition in College Park, Maryland.

As a chamber musician, Lutsyshyn has performed in ensembles with prominent musicians such as violinists Joshua Bell and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, tubist Harvey Phillips, saxophonist Eugene Rousseau, and tenor James King, among many others. Together with her husband, Andrey Kasparov, she is a founding member of the Invencia Piano Duo, performing nationally and internationally.

Lutsyshyn is a prolific recording artist, having worked with the BBC, Vienna Modern Masters, and Contemporary Record Society. But it was her recordings of Hommage à Gabriel Fauré (Hommages musicaux) and piano works by Adolphus Hailstork (Ignis fatuus) on Albany Records that brought her high critical acclaim. The Fanfare Magazine called her touch in Ignis fatuus “perfect,” while the American Record Guide’s review of Hommages musicaux proclaimed: “Hats off to the Kasparov-Lutsyshyn piano duo team for bringing these fascinating pieces to us in their original forms.” She and Kasparov have recently recorded the entire original works by Florent Schmitt for piano duet and duo.

In addition to her performing and recording schedules, Ms. Lutsyshyn has taught master classes at many American universities, including Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, and University of Central Arkansas in Conway, Arkansas. Currently, she teaches piano at the Governor’s School for the Arts and Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She also serves as Director of Music at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Virginia Beach.