Sasha was born in 1995 in Moscow as her mother was working on her master’s degree and her father was teaching, practicing “all day, every day” and competing. In 1997, Yakov Kasman won the Van Cliburn Competition and the family relocated to Huntsville, Alabama. They thought the move was temporary; they had never intended to immigrate to the U.S. Their car, their apartment, and their life were all back in Moscow. But when Yakov received an offer to teach at the University of Alabama’s Birmingham campus, the family packed up and made a permanent move.
Yakov and Tatiana Kasman, both accomplished pianists, did not consider their daughter, Sasha, to be a prodigy. They did, however, identify their daughter’s perfect pitch. Sasha could sing obscure pieces started from anywhere within a piece. She was an active child who only sat still when listening to classical music.
“My parents took me everywhere with them. I never had a babysitter. I would be all over the place, then once I was seated and the performance began, I was as still as a stone statue,” recalls Sasha of herself. “They discovered that the antidote to my hyperactivity was a concert.”
When Sasha was three years old, she became obsessed with the stories within the music. She would, invent stories, using her stuffed animals, while sitting under her father’s grand piano.
“I imagined that the music was sharing a story and I would whisper the story into the ear of a friend next to me,” shares Sasha.
It was not until Sasha was five or six—when she could sit still through instruction–that she started piano lessons. Each of her parents had separate rooms in their home where they taught piano. It was an old home, and since there was no soundproofing, Sasha found herself absorbing repertoire through the walls. She began studying with her father when she was eleven years old.
Ninety-nine percent of kids do not like to practice. “No one likes to work hard,” states Sasha. “I had built-in monitoring, so I had no choice.”
When it was time for her to attend college at UAB, Sasha had to beg her parents for permission to live in the dorms. She craved some independence. Even then, her practice schedule was intense. She and her father worked hard, with one lesson at home each weekend and three during the week at school.
Now Sasha teaches solo, collaborative piano, chamber music and piano literature at Utah State University. Sasha absolutely loves teaching, especially exploring the philosophical aspects of music. She credits her passionate, even obsessive, approach to teaching to both of her parents. It’s in her DNA – so is performing.
“I am always drawn to pieces that aren’t often heard. I take it upon myself to convince others that this is worthy of being performed and being known,” says Sasha of her eclectic musical taste. “I lean in to under-represented music. In general, there are a lot of neglected composers throughout history.”
Extended Bio
Pianist Sasha Kasman Laude’s playing is praised by the Palm Beach Arts Paper as “powerful and vivid” and having “such an abundance of intelligence that it can only be described as relentless” (Ludwig van Toronto). She is in demand as a soloist and pedagogue with engagements across three continents.
Kasman Laude appears as a guest artist and teacher at the invitation of such festivals as International Keyboard Institute and Festival, Southeastern Piano Festival, Utah State University Summer Piano Festival, Kyiv International Summer Academy (Ukraine), Busan International Music Academy (South Korea), and PianoCity Milano (Italy). She has given solo recitals at such major venues as Steinway Hall in New York City, Yamaha Ginza Hall in Tokyo, Salle Cortot in Paris, and Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa. In 2019, she was named a Young Artist-in-Residence of National Public Radio’s Performance Today, hosted by Fred Child. Her playing and interviews have been broadcast on NPR stations nationwide. This year, Kasman Laude performs for the Birmingham Chamber Music Society, Eisendrath Series of Ann Arbor, MI, InConcert Series of Apalachicola, FL, International Keyboard Odyssiad and Festival, Vivace International Music Festival, and pianoSonoma, and is a soloist with the Dayton and Ann Arbor symphony orchestras.
Kasman Laude has triumphed in numerous international competitions; most recently, she became a finalist in the 2022 Honens International Piano Competition (Canada). She has been a soloist with over a dozen symphony orchestras in the USA and abroad, including the Juilliard Orchestra and Calgary Symphony, and has appeared seven times with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. She has worked under the batons of maestros including Jeffrey Kahane, Neal Gittleman, Gregory Vajda, Jeffrey Milarsky, Yaniv Attar, Christopher Confessore, Jacques Cohen, Mykola Dyadura, Nazar Yakobenchuk, and Natalia Ponomarchuk. Kasman Laude is an advocate and experienced performer of contemporary music, premiering works of living composers Stewart Goodyear, Marc Migó, Nathan Daughtrey, Zachary Detrick, and Eric Mobley. In addition to her vibrant solo playing, Kasman Laude is an enthusiastic chamber musician and has collaborated with such distinguished players as Martin Beaver, Blake Pouliot, the Viano and Aeolus String Quartets, and the New York Chamber Players. She and her father Yakov Kasman have been an internationally-touring piano duo for fourteen years.
A native of Moscow, Kasman Laude began her musical studies with her parents, acclaimed pianists and pedagogues Yakov and Tatiana Kasman. She continued studying with her father at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and received an MM degree from the Juilliard School, studying with Robert McDonald. In 2023, Kasman Laude received a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan, where she studied with Logan Skelton, won the school concerto competition, and received the School of Music, Theater, and Dance’s top graduation honor, the Earl V. Moore Award.
Kasman Laude maintains her own private piano studio and has lectured and taught masterclasses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lee University, Utah State University, Bowling Green State University, and the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. She is passionate about music outreach and has given over one hundred educational performances in schools and community venues in large part as a Fellow of PianoArts of Wisconsin. In the fall of 2023, Kasman Laude joined the faculty of Utah State University as Assistant Professor of Piano. In her leisure time, she enjoys beating her husband in chess and transcribing Soviet film music.