Dr. Marina Lomazov, Assistant Professor of Piano has joined the piano faculty of the University of South Carolina School of Music in 2002. Having started her education in the Ukraine at the Kiev Conservatory she earned her MM degree from The Juilliard School and both BM and DMA degrees from the Eastman School of Music, the latter granting her the highly coveted Artist’s Certificate - an honor the institution had not bestowed upon a pianist for nearly two decades. Dr. Lomazov is also on the piano faculty at the Brevard Music Center and is the founder and artistic director of the Southeastern Piano Festival in Columbia, SC. Her principal teachers include Natalya Antonova, Jerome Lowenthal, Barry Snyder, and Valeri Sagaidachny.

Dr. Lomazov has been awarded top prizes in several of the world’s major piano competitions including Cleveland International (Silver Medal), Kapell International (Carmen Sasmore Prize), Bachauer International (Outstanding Female Performer), and Hilton Head International (First Prize). As a winner of the Young Artist Auditions sponsored by the National Federation of Music Clubs, she toured the United States from 1997-99 in addition to winning a $10,000 cash award. She has appeared with the Boston Pops, Rochester Philharmonic, Graz Hochschulorchester, Ohio Chamber Orchestra, Missouri Chamber Orchestra, South Carolina Philharmonic, and the Spokane Symphony Orchestra, to name a few. She has performed in Weill Hall, Merkin Hall, Steinway Hall, and Rockefeller University (New York), Symphony Hall and Steinert Hall (Boston), Lyon de Opera (France), Theatro Sao Pedro (Porto Alegre, Brazil), Abravanel Hall (Utah), and Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Sundays live Series (simulcast on KMZT). Ms. Lomazov’s California appearance as soloist with the Redlands Symphony Orchestra in 2005 followed engagements at the 2005 Piccolo Spoleto Festival with the Charleston (SC) Symphony Orchestra, the Collington Festival Orchestra in England, and recitals at the University of Houston and the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music in Tucson. In summer of 2007 she and her husband and piano duo partner, Joseph Rackers, travel to Ukraine on an invitation to perform with the Filarmonica Orchestra of Chernigoff in Chernigoff and Kiev.

Ms. Lomazov is a frequent guest artist at music festivals at the U.S. and abroad, including the Moulin d’Ande Arts Festival (France), Varna International Piano Master Classes (Bulgaria), Piano Festival Northwest (OR), Wassermann Piano Festival (UT), and Grand Teton Music Festival (WY). Her live performances are broadcast regularly on National Public Radio, including programs such as NPR's "Performance Today", “Classics in the Morning” on Boston’s WGBH, and "Young Artist Showcase" on New York's WQXR. In 2007 Centaur Records will release Ms. Lomazov’s debut CD of piano music by Rodion Shchedrin.