Rome School Professor Nikita Fitenko and Guest Katerina Zaitseva Shine at Duo Piano Concert
Image Courtesy of Anthony Curioso
By Anthony Curioso
Since the 2012-13 school year, the Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art has held the Washington International Piano Series (WIPS), a concert series with five to six performances every year. This series spotlights a wide range of world-renowned pianists from within the CUA piano faculty and performing guest artists from across the United States.
The latest installment of the WIPS, held in the Ward Recital Hall on February 2, featured Dr. Nikita Fitenko, a CUA piano area faculty member, and his wife, Katerina Zaitseva, with whom he regularly performs duo piano recitals worldwide.
Originally from Russia, the duo has received critical acclaim in many countries across the world for their performances. Dr. Fitenko has been a tenured member of the CUA piano faculty since 2008 and has often adjudicated the Rome School’s piano proficiency exams alongside Dr. Ivo Kaltchev, the head of the CUA piano area. Meanwhile, Zaitseva is on the piano faculty at the Levine Music School in DC after having previously served in similar roles at Louisiana College and the University of Maryland. Since its creation in 2009, Fitenko and Zaitseva have been on the faculty of the annual Washington International Piano Festival, a DC music festival held in late July and early August.
The concert was the third WIPS performance featuring both Zaitseva and Dr. Fitenko. Their first two duet performances in the series were a collaboration with cellist Michael Mermagen in February 2013 and a collection of two-piano works by world-renowned composers Sergei Rachmaninoff and Sergei Prokofiev in January 2018.
The 2025 Fitenko/Zaitseva WIPS performance program began with a piano rendition of one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. It also featured selections from other world-renowned composers such as Rachmaninoff, Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms, and Igor Stravinsky.
Dr. Fitenko commented on how he and Zaitseva chose their 2025 WIPS concert repertoire.
“We wanted to make the concert representative, with many different styles,” Fitenko said. “We felt the audience members should experience pieces we have known for a while and newly learned pieces.”
The repertoire for this concert showcased Dr. Fitenko and Zaitseva’s immense talent and technical skill. As a music major, I understand that piano duos can be extremely challenging; however, Fitenko and Zaitseva made their chosen works seem much more manageable. Their “four hands, one piano” playing style was even more impressive; this technique is particularly difficult because both pianists need to give each other enough room to play.
“Playing with another pianist is always challenging because you want to be completely in sync,” Fitenko said. “Our pieces by Bach and Stravinsky were particularly challenging.”
Additionally, the transitions between pieces were incredibly smooth, and all the selected works received positive reactions from the audience. Even though this concert was not advertised in buildings outside of the Rome School, the crowd was significantly larger than I had expected. Eager audience members filled almost every seat in the Ward Recital Hall. When I arrived for the performance, the room was so full that absolutely no programs remained.
Subsequent WIPS events will feature Dr. Francesca Hurst, another CUA piano faculty member, on February 20 and Wael Farouk, a piano faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music, on March 21-22. Like all previous WIPS performances, these will be held in the Ward Recital Hall. For additional information, please contact Dr. Kaltchev at [email protected].
Dr. Fitenko shared that he and Zaitseva will perform a two-piano concert on May 4 in Vienna, Virginia. They will also return to the Washington International Piano Festival in July and perform another two-piano concert on November 2 in Bethesda, Maryland.
