Interview

Asiya Korepanova is a Boston-based Russian award-winning pianist, transcriber, artist, poet, entrepreneur, and composer. Asiya is passionate about the interdisciplinary connections between music and other arts, which led her to create projects where she expresses herself through different mediums at the same time.

She is the founder and artistic director of the annual chamber music festival with special programming “Festival Baltimore”, and president of the non-profit organization “Music for Minds”. Having toured over 20 countries and possessing 60 piano concertos in her repertoire, Asiya often features her original transcriptions and composers’ complete collections of works in her solo programs.

To learn more about her projects, go here and that page leads to descriptions of each project, with poems and artwork available to see.

The book mentioned in the interview was Things Fall Apart.

“The effects of color and energy are presented in our daily lives and conditions the spirit “ – Mary Chang

Mary Chang was born in lower Manhattan, New York, USA. She was raised in Fort Greene -Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn, where she continues to live with her family and work.  An interdisciplinary artist, painting, printmaking, theater and movement are her art forms. 

Mary attended the School of Visual Arts,  and  worked with Master printers  Shelia Goloborotko and the late  Sheila Marbain.

There was a pause in her work as a painter from the mid 1970’s to the late 1990’s. She spent this time raising her family and focusing on theater. In the mid 1980’s Mary began to study theater, perform and travel. Her theater experience includes: La Mama Experimental Theater in New York, touring Italy as part of the technical crew on Fragments of a Greek Trilogy, directed by Andrei Serban.  She was part of an ensemble group of four American actors and four Swiss actors who developed and co-wrote a play titled In-Ter-View which toured throughout New York area and Switzerland, directed by Walter Riedweg of the Werktheater of Basel Switzerland.  Mary was part of the Immigrant’s Theater Project directed Marcy Arlin where she co-wrote the play Immigration Office, The ensemble performed throughout New York area..  She also worked with director Amir Naderi on his first American film, Manhattan by Numbers shown at New Directors Film Festival (MoMA/Lincoln Center).

Mary studied theater in New York with acting coach Anthony Abeson/mentor, Ada Brown Mather , Carol Rosenfeld of HB Studios,  The Barrow Group, and  Linklater coach  Bobby Troka.

“My experience in theater and art has been an exploration leading me to discover that the line of distance between my process in theater and art are one and the same. My tools interchange.” 

In 1999 Mary returned to painting , invited to exhibit by friend and mentor Onnie MIllar artist /educator.

Her work has since been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), Robert Lehman Gallery at Urban Glass as well as various galleries and cultural centers throughout the  New York tri-state area, Massachusetts Brazil and The Netherlands. 

Mary’s recent exhibition “A New York State of Mind:Stories From The  Unusual Suspects, curated by Elise Tak and exhibited at De  Cacaofabriek, in the Netherlands September 2018  introduces 14 independent  American Artist from the United States and their Unique stories.