Russian pianist Boris Berezovsky has bowed out of the Tchaikovsky Celebration at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, citing illness.

Taking his place at the piano will be rising young piano star Natasha Paremski, 20, who has stepped in at the last minute for the concerts Wednesday and Thursday.

Russian-born Natasha Paremski is a rising young star of piano.
(Anthony Parmelee/Natasha Paremski)

Berezovsky, 38, was to have made his debut with the NAC with Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1.

An NAC spokeswoman said she had no details of Berezovsky's illness, but had word the Brussels-based artist has cancelled his appearances for the next two months.

He is a soloist who has performed in recital series and festivals worldwide and is considered a foremost interpreter of Tchaikovsky. He won the 1990 International Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow.

Paremski will take over performing the same work, in a program led by Norwegian conductor Arild Remmereit.

Paremski, born in Moscow and raised in the United States, won the 2006 Gilmore Young Artist Award from the Los Angeles Philharmonic and top prize in the Young Artists in Carnegie Hall 2000 International Piano Festival.

She has become an in-demand soloist in her own right, appearing on stage in London, Paris, San Francisco, Baltimore and New York last year.

The program opens with Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin and concludes with his  Symphony No. 3, nicknamed the "Polish Symphony."