Eugene S. Petrushansky was born in Kazan, Tatarstan, in the then-Soviet Union in 1985. Emigrating to the United States in 1993, he started receiving piano lessons not long thereafter, and showed an early affinity for the music of J.S. Bach. Long interested in the harpsichord, his arrival at the University of California, Berkeley in the fall of 2004 occasioned an encounter with several outstanding specimens at the Music Department’s early instruments repository.
Petrushansky went on to study with Davitt Moroney and Katherine Heater during his sojourn at Berkeley, his first public outing a command performance of the Ricercar à 3 from the Musical Offering at the 2006 Junior Bach Festival. During his years at Berkeley he was the recipient of awards such as the Elkus Prize for music scholarship and SFEMS’ Robert Greenberg scholarship. Since graduating from Berkeley in 2007, he has performed in recital at the Berkeley Early Music Festival, the Voices of Music Young Artists concert, and at masterclasses with visiting artists such as Arthur Haas and James Johnstone. Running engagements include continuo work with the Bay Area Classical Harmonies (BACH) orchestra and the Winchester Symphony of San José, as well as an organist position at St Joseph of Arimathea Chapel in Berkeley.
Petrushansky’s repertoire is comprehensive, encompassing the Elizabethan virginalist school of c.1600, French (and French-inspired) style brisé suites of the second half of the 17th century, Scarlatti sonatas, and, of course, the solo keyboard and ensemble music of J.S. Bach. The artist presently makes his home in Fremont, California, and pursues his musical avocation semi-professionally concurrent with a career in automated equipment engineering.
