He is a percussionist born in Kiev, Ukraine who began to become interested in percussion while still young and performed with a children’s music group from the age of five before gaining entry to the Revutsky Music School wen he was 6 years old. While in the school the Kiev Children’s Phiharmonic awarded him the Prize Winning Meda in 1987 and he won a first prize at the Soviet Union’s Young Virtuoso competition.
He moved to New York with his family in 1991 and studied at Juilliard School’s precollege program on a full scholarship. In 1992 he became a student at LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and won several concerto competitions along with the Louis Smadbeck Scholarship, the ASCAP Leiber and Stoeler Scholarship, the Dr. Randolph Award and the Morton Gould Memorial Award.
Further studies were taken at the Manhattan School of Music on a full scholarship and also became a Tanglewood fellow.
He has performed with many orchestras that include the Grant Park Symphony, the New Jersey Symphony, the New York City Opera, the New York Philharmonic and the Rhode Island Philharmonic. He was appointed a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2001 by Daniel Barenboim where he holds the position of Assistant Principal Timpani and Percussiion.
As a soloist he has performed with orchestras at Roosevelt University as well as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He is also an active chamber musician.
Recordings he has performed on include the soundtrack of the film Lincoln by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Live by Chicago Symphony Orchestra Brass.
In the field of musical education he has given many national and international percussion clinics, been on the board of advisors of Chicago’s New Music School and became an adjunct member of the faculty of Roosevelt University in 2005.
Sources:
- https://cso.org/about/performers/cso-musicians/percussion/timpani/vadim-karpinos/
- https://www.innovativepercussion.com/artists/vadim_karpinos
- https://percussionmagazine.online/en/percussion-vadim-karpinos-on-the-audition-process/
- https://csosoundsandstories.org/vadim-karpinos-and-company-in-tambourin-chinois/
- https://www.newmusicschool.com/advisory-board/vadim-karpinos/
- https://www.roosevelt.edu/academics/faculty/profile/vkarpinos
- https://www.msmnyc.edu/programs/percussion/2021-percussion-summit/artist-bios/