Olga Tereshchenko

Powell River Academy of Music’s piano teacher and accompanist Olga Tereshchenko made her North American debut ten years ago at the Powell River Kathaumixw International Music Festival. She came here as accompanist for the world-renowned Shedryk Children’s Choir from Kiev, Ukraine. Four years later, after an extensive tour of the Soviet Union with the same choir, the group returned to North America for the American International Festival for Young Singers, as part of a continental American tour, culminating in the Shedryk Children’s Choir’s second participation at Kathaumixw.

Olga began her piano studies at age seven, first in Kiev, and then at Gnesinysh College of Music, Moscow, graduating in 1961. Her teacher in Moscow was Elina Gorkina, herself a student of the late Nikolai Metner, one of Russia’s last great Romantic Era pianists and composers of the of the early 20th Century.

Following graduation, Olga returned to Kiev, where she worked as a piano teacher and official accompanist of the Shedryk Children’s’ Choir. She has toured the world, including the former U.S.S.R, the U.S.A. and Canada, as accompanist of the Shedryk Children’s Choir.

Sponsored by the Daryl and Doreen Smith Family, Powell River, Ms. Tereshchenko immigrated to Canada in 1995, and became a Canadian citizen in 2000. She now works as both teacher and accompanist at the Powell River Academy of Music.