Interview with Ghenady Meirson: Tchaikovsky, His Vocal Music and Life Story

Ghenady rehearsing with singer Tatyana Rashkovsky. Photo credit: Lisa Schaffer

With this post from February of 2010, I continue to publish my archival blog materials from the retired PR Perfect site. I conducted this interview with the Philadelphia treasure Ghenady Meirson (aka coach Ghena) ahead of Lyric Fest's popular "Biography in Music" program dedicated to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.  

SAD UPDATE: Ghenady passed away in May 2021, in the midst of the COVID pandemic, after a long battle with cancer, at the age of 63. He will be forever missed by hundreds, if not thousands, of those whose life he and his music have touched. Read his obituary here.      

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MEET GHENADY MEIRSON:

As BroadwayWorld notes, Meirson is “perhaps the preeminent expositor of the Russian vocal repertoire in America, and he does that through the annual Russian Opera Workshop programs."

A long-time faculty member at both the Academy of Vocal Arts and Curtis Institute of Music, “Ghenady Meirson has been the go to-master for two decades in Philadelphia for authentic Russian operatic repertoire” (Huffington Post).

In 2011, Meirson founded Russian Opera Workshop, a private and independent young artists program in summer residency at the Academy of Vocal Arts (AVA), and “has become one of the treasures of the Philadelphia summer season” (Broad Street Review). Learn more about Ghena here.

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