Biography
North Carolinian, pianist Olga Kleiankina enjoys a rich musical life of a performer, pedagogue and researcher. Dr. Kleiankina is currently the Teaching Professor and Director of the Piano Program at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC, USA. Dr. Kleiankina is a member of the Outstanding Teachers Academy and recipient of the 2016 Outstanding Teacher Award and the 2021 Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor Award at NC State. Kleiankina is the author and a visionary of the Piano+ App, an online resource for beginning piano learners. As a researcher, she is interested in cross-discipline collaborations with colleagues in the field of engineering, computer science, health and educational psychology. Kleiankina has presented in regional and national conferences sponsored by the Music Teachers National Association, the College Music Society and the American Technology in Music Association.
Being a passionate musician and an eclectic performer, Kleiankina’s interests range from historic keyboard practice to new music. Her international career evolved with solo and visual recitals, chamber music collaborations and concertos with orchestras in Russia, Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Greece, France, Chile and across the United States. She has performed under the baguette of conductors Emil Simon, Robert Houlihan, Zsolt Janko, Randolph Foy, Peter Askim and Jeffrey Meyer.
In her performance project “…Our Passage to the Stars…”, she collaborated with Emil Polyak, professor of graphic design at Drexel University, who created an Artificial Intelligence software that translated live sound from a piano into an independent real-time behavior of a 3D visual structure. This project was received with great enthusiasm at the Smithsonian Museum in D.C., the North Carolina Museum of Art and the 2019 CMS conference. The CD album with the same title “…Our Passage to the Stars…” was released by Blue Griffin/Albany in July 2019.
Additionally, Kleiankina is an enthusiastic performer of new music promoting the works of living composers. Her new CD, Abstractum, created in collaboration with flutist Kelariz Keshavarz features works for flute and piano by Alireza Mashayekhi, a prominent Iranian composer. Kleiankina has appeared in new music festivals such as the 2002 Sigismund Toduta Festival in Romania, 2010 Sound Ways Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia, 2012 New Music Festival in Moldova, 2014 Modern Music Festival in Santiago, Chile, 2021 World Flutes Festival XIII Edition in Argentina, 2021 Simpósio Internacional de Música Nova 2021 in Brazil and 2023 Chamber Music Festival in Barrannquilla, Colombia.
Kleiankina completed her early musical training in St. Neaga College of Music in Moldova, and the Academy of Music Gh. Dima in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, followed by a Master’s degree from Bowling Green State University and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan. Her teachers have included Ninuca Pop and Ferdinand Weiss in Romania; and Maxim Mogilevsky, John Ellis, Penelope Crawford and Arthur Greene in the United States.