Polusmiak Creating Legacy in Kentucky

   Pianist Sergei Polusmiak is completely devoted to his students.
   "My students are my children," he says literally so in the case of Anna Polusmiak, his step-daughter
   Anna, 22, an international competition winner who will perform with the Cincinnati Symphony at Music Hall in April and with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic (Russia) in June, is one of eight Polusmiak students who will give a joint recital at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 2 in Northern Kentucky University’s Greaves Concert Hall (free). Polusmiak himself will perform Chopin’s Ballade No. 4.
   Unlikely as it may sound, Polusmiak – Tom and Christine Neyer Family Endowed Professor at NKU learned to play piano on paper.
   Born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in 1951, he was less than a year old when his parents, both engineers, left to work in Vorkuta, a coal mining town 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle in the Russian tundra.
   "Political prisoners were sent there. I saw them a lot. Many could move freely because there was nowhere to go. There was six months’ night and of course, cold (40-50 degrees below zero) and no trees."
   But since the city had been built by political prisoners, many from the intelligentsia, there was culture. Living there was "an incredible experience," he said. "We had the best actors, writers, musicians. I remember many of these people visiting our apartment. There was a guy – an electrician who played every instrument who came and started giving me lessons."
   Polusmiak was 11. He had made a keyboard out of paper since the family didn’t have a piano.
   "I played on the paper something and he played with me (on violin). I was listening to and imagining the sound."
   The next year a music school opened in the town (with a piano). Polusmiak finished its seven-year program in three years.
   "I practice and practice and practice," he said. "It’s Russian character. If you do something, you do it without limits. If we fight, we fight. If we’re lazy, we’re lazy. If you love, (it’s) till death."
   Polusmiak had fallen in love with music.
   He returned to Kharkiv at 15 to attend music college (four years, equivalent to our high school).
   "I had trouble compared with the children who had seven years in real music schools. I was from the North. I didn’t know where the library is. Philharmonic is a strange word. I worked really hard. I slept there. I practiced during the night, from 9 until 6 in the morning. I read the whole library, all 12 volumes of Shakespeare, 20 volumes of Chekov, 13 volumes of Turgenev. I just do it for me. Of course, I was listening to all the music they have. I just ate everything."
   Finishing at the top of his class, he was accepted by pianist Regina Horowitz, sister of legendary virtuoso Vladimir Horowitz, at the Kharkiv Institute of the Arts.
   "She was copy of Vladimir," he said, "a very tough lady" with "incredible fingers."
   While a student in her class, he won a big Ukrainian competition. After graduation (1975) he was invited to join the Kharkiv faculty.
   He taught there until 1998, earning the title "Honored Artist of Ukraine" from the Ukrainian president and becoming the conservatory’s youngest full professor. In November, 1990, he was a member of the first Sister City delegation from Kharkiv to Cincinnati, a trip that would change his life.
   He was met at the airport by Chris Neyer, who had offered to keep him and a pair of Cossack dancers at the Neyer home in Mount Lookout.
   "We stayed there a couple of weeks, almost no English, but we talked and talked and became good friends. After that, I started to come here two or three times a year."
   Polusmiak came to Cincinnati to earn money. Conditions were deteriorating in Ukraine after the breakup of the Soviet Union. "Everything was dependent on Russia. We didn’t have resources, oil, anything. We didn’t have salary for months and months."
   He performed for the opening of the Aronoff Center in 1995, was soloist with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra and Kentucky Symphony Orchestra. He gave master classes and served residencies at NKU, always returning to Ukraine to help his family.
   The "last drop" came when his young son Sergei (now 9) got pneumonia twice in one year. "In hospital, conditions were absolutely unbearable. You need to bring your own medicine, sheets, pillows, blankets, everything. There was no heat. It was just impossible, so I asked Neyer family to help me see if I could emigrate." The Neyers hired lawyers, who eventually won him a "green card," allowing him to enter the U.S. as a permanent resident.
   Polusmiak, his wife Ludmila and Anna and Sergei arrived in the U.S. in October, 1998. He taught at NKU part time, then the Neyers endowed a professorship for him.
   NKU has been supportive "from the beginning," he said. "When I just had a job, the dean (Gail Wells) called and said, ‘You have money to buy two Steinways. Go to New York and find them.’ We bought big, $100,000 Steinway for the hall and one for my studio."
   National City Bank, on the Neyers’ recommendation, recently gave NKU $135,000 to fund four international scholarships for him. The first recipient, Yulia Yunn from Uzbekistan, will perform tonight.
   Polusmiak’s dream, is "to establish something here for children. I bring the books from Russia for children. We have books for many years of teaching, a gold mine. I’m dreaming to translate all those books." Music students in Russia have more focused and intensive training, he explained. "In my country we never heard about half-hour lessons. Twice a week for one hour is minimal, at special school, four, five times a week," including theory and music history.
   "All children have musical talent. It’s a matter of teachers to get it out."
   His students at NKU come from Europe – three from Ukraine – as well as North and South America.
   Polusmiak’s NKU colleagues, Diana Belland and Carolyn Hagner, trumpet his contributions to the school.
   "Sergei is an extraordinary musician, pianist and teacher with a rare skill to communicate musical and technical ideas to students of all levels," said Hagner. "His success with American and international students alike has inspired students to reach for higher goals."
   "He spends most of his time teaching," said Belland. "It has been a joy to watch his young protégés mature into artists. We take great pride in his students’ accomplishments and we hope he will always be with us."
(first published in The Cincinnati Post Dec. 2, 2005)