Artists
Teresa da Palma Pereira
- July 2
Teresa da Palma Pereira
After finishing her studies at Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa with the maximum classification under the supervision of the pianist Tania Achot, and a master's degree in piano performance at Catholic University of Porto with Filipe Pinto Ribeiro, she continued her musical studies at Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel with Jan Michiels and in Madrid with Claudio Mehner. She obtained her PHD degree in 2015 with “Summa cum laude” at the Escola das Artes of the Catholic University Porto under the orientation of the pianist Sofia Lourenço and the composer Paulo Ferreira Lopes.
She won several national and international prizes, including “Maria Campina” and “Princess Lalla Meryem”, and performed as soloist with the Brussels Chamber Orchestra, as a prize of Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel Competition for students of all instruments. She has played, since 2006, in countries as France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Brazil and China, as well as in the main Portuguese festivals and concert halls, including Dias da Música, Sintra Festival, Oeiras Festival, Mafra Festival, Centro Cultural de Belém, Auditório Ruy de Carvalho, Centro Cultural de Cascais and Olga Cadaval Cultural Center, as soloist and with the leading Portuguese orchestras and conductors.
She is the author of the book "Schumann´s Carnaval: work of genius and madness" (based in her PhD dissertation and with a preface of Professor Mário de Vieira de Carvalho) and has recorded five CDs: "Waltz Transfigured" with works by Schubert and Schumann, “Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1" with Orquestra do Norte, "Encounter", with works by Mozart and Schumann, "Identity", with music by Debussy, Prokofiev and Liszt and most recent “Terra”, with works by Mussorgsky, Bartók, Albéniz.
Pianist of great originality, Teresa da Palma Pereira has been dedicated, in the last years, to a set of projects that aim to bring erudite music to new audiences, performing several cycles of commented recitals, as "Communication with music", "Classics outdoors", Classics for All" and " Classics in the Bookstore", at Fundação Portuguesa das Comunicações, Palace of the Aciprestes, in Linda-a-Velha, social quarters and the bookstore “Ler Devagar”, in Alcântara, respectively.
She´s also the Artistic Director of the Oeiras International Piano Festival since 2018.
Tiffany Poon
- July 6
Tiffany Poon
Hong-Kong born pianist Tiffany Poon has appeared with orchestras and in recital throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia since she was first accepted to the Juilliard pre-college program at the age of eight where she studied with Emanuel Ax and the lateJoseph Kalichstein.
In February 2024, Tiffany released her debut album on Pentatone, "Diaries: Schumann", which has amassed over 5 million streams and charted at No.1 on Apple Music Classical across four continents.
Recent highlights for Tiffany include her Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin debut performing Brahms’ Piano Concerto, as well as a sold-out debut recital at Dresdner Musikfestspiele. She also made debut performances at the Klavierfestival Ruhr, Rheingau Musikfestival’s KlassikMarathon and the Sèries Jeunes of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich. She collaborated with pianist Louie Lortie and conductor Josep Caballé Domenech at the Moritzburg Festival, and made further debuts at the Herbst Theatre with Chamber Music San Francisco, Munich’s Herkulessaal for the Klassik vor Acht series, and as part of the Washington Performing Arts' Hayes Piano Series at the Kennedy Center.
With a YouTube community of 325k subscribers and over 50 million views, Tiffany is dedicated to building new audiences in classical music through insights into her life as a musician with the aim of making music more accessible for all. She is also the Founder and President of ‘Together with Classical’, a charity which empowers people of diverse musical backgrounds to learn and share their experiences with classical music through online community engagement, grant-giving, interviews and educational videos.
Bertrand Chamayou
- July 13
Bertrand Chamayou
Bertrand Chamayou is one of today's most surprisingly brilliant pianists, recognised for his revelatory performances, which are at once powerfully virtuosic, imaginative and breathtakingly beautiful.
Known for his masterful conviction and insightful musicianship covering a vast repertoire, the French pianist performs at the highest level on the international music scene. He is recognised as one of the leading interpreters of the French repertoire, shedding new light on familiar and lesser-known works, while possessing a curiosity and deep passion for new music. He has worked with composers such as Pierre Boulez, Henri Dutilleux, György Kurtág, Thomas Adès and Michael Jarrell.
In 2019, Bertrand Chamayou won the Gramophone Awards for Best Concerto and Overall Recording of the Year for his album of Saint-Saëns Piano Concertos No. 2 and 5 with the Orchestre National de France and Emmanuel Krivine. His award-winning discography also includes Ravel's complete piano works (ECHO Klassik prize) and Liszt's complete Années de pèlerinage, recorded for Naïve (Choc de Classica; Diapason d'Or de l'année and Album of the Year at the Victoires de la Musique Classique 2012). Chamayou is an exclusive Erato artist.
Chamayou appears regularly at the world's most prestigious concert halls and festivals, such as the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Wigmore Hall, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Lincoln Center New York, Philharmonie de Paris, Berlin Philharmonie, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Suntory Hall Tokyo, Southbank Centre International Piano Series, as well as Mostly Mozart in New York, Beethovenfest Bonn, Lucerne Festival, La Roque d'Anthéron, Edinburgh International Festival and Rheingau Musik Festival.
He has undertaken several important recitals of substantial bodies of work, most memorably Ravel's complete piano works, Liszt's Studies and ‘Années de pèlerinage’ and Messiaen's ‘Vingt regard sur l'enfant-Jésus’. Chamayou also enjoys high-profile artistic residencies in his own right at Radio France, the Gstaad Menuhin Festival and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
A passionate chamber musician, Bertrand Chamayou often performs with partners such as cellist Sol Gabetta, violinists Vilde Frang and Renaud Capuçon, pianist Leif Ove Andsnes and clarinettist Sabine Meyer.
Bertrand Chamayou was born in Toulouse and lives in Paris. He has received France's prestigious Victoires de la Musique Classique award on four separate occasions and in 2015 was appointed Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.
After a series of international premieres last year, 2019-20 promises another rich concert season, including performances at Munich Gasteig, London's Wigmore Hall, Paris Philharmonie, Tonhalle Zurich, Gothenburg, Detroit and Luzern. He also realises several projects at the Strasbourg music festival, including works by John Cage for piano prepared with the dancer Élodie Sicard. Chamayou will also make his debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, tour with the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées and appear as artistic director and on the jury of the Long Thibaud Crespin Competition 2019.
Bertrand Chamayou performs with the best orchestras in the world, including the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, the Orchestre de Paris, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Wiener Symphoniker, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Montreal's Tonhalle Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Bamberg Symphoniker and NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, among many others. He has had the privilege of sharing the stage with conductors Pierre Boulez and Sir Neville Marriner and counts Semyon Bychkov, Mikko Franck, Philippe Herreweghe, Philippe Jordan, François-Xavier Roth, Tugan Sokhiev, Stéphane Denève and Emmanuel Krivine among his regular podium partners.
Angela Hewitt
- July 20
Angela Hewitt
One of the world’s leading concert pianists, Angela Hewitt appears in recital and as soloist with major orchestras throughout Europe, the Americas, Australia, and Asia. Her interpretations of the music of J.S. Bach have established her as one of the composer’s foremost interpreters of our time.
Born in 1958 into a musical family (the daughter of the Cathedral organist and choirmaster in Ottawa, Canada), Angela began her piano studies age three, performed in public at four and a year later won her first scholarship. In her formative years, she also studied classical ballet, violin, and recorder. From 1963-73 she studied at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music with Earle Moss and Myrtle Guerrero, after which she completed her Bachelor of Music in Performance at the University of Ottawa in the class of French pianist Jean-Paul Sévilla, graduating at the age of 18. She was a prizewinner in numerous piano competitions in Europe, Canada, and the USA, but it was her triumph in the 1985 Toronto International Bach Piano Competition, held in memory of Glenn Gould, that truly launched her international career.
Angela’s award-winning cycle for Hyperion Records of all the major keyboard works of Bach has been described as “one of the record glories of our age” (The Sunday Times). Begun in 1994, it culminated with her much-awaited recording of Bach’s Art of Fugue in 2014. Her extensive discography also includes solo recordings of the complete Beethoven Sonatas (she is one of very few women ever to record the complete cycle), Scarlatti, Handel, Couperin, Rameau, Haydn, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Fauré, Debussy, Chabrier, Ravel, Granados and Messiaen. She has won four Juno Awards, including one for her album of Mozart Concertos with Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra. Other concerto recordings include the complete Bach Concertos with the Australian Chamber Orchestra; the works for piano and orchestra of Schumann with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; and Messiaen’s mammoth Turangalila Symphony with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. She is now recording the complete Mozart Piano Sonatas, and the first of three double-CD albums will be released in November 2022. A regular in the USA Billboard chart, her new album Love Songs hit the top of the specialist classical chart in the UK and stayed there for months after its release. In 2015, Angela was inducted into Gramophone Magazine’s “Hall of Fame”, reflecting her popularity with music lovers around the world.
In 2020 she was awarded two prestigious prizes: the City of Leipzig Bach Medal (being the first woman in its 17-year history to receive the award), and the Wigmore Hall Gold Medal in recognition of some 80 performances over the past 35 years in London’s most prestigious chamber music venue.
During the 2007-2008 season, Angela embarked on her Bach World Tour, performing the Well-Tempered Clavier in 21 countries on six continents. At the same time, she released a DVD entitled Bach Performance on the Piano, sharing her experience of learning and performing Bach with amateurs and professionals alike. From September 2016 to September 2022 (the end delayed two years due to the Covid-19 pandemic) she presented in major cities of the world The Bach Odyssey—performing all the keyboard works of J.S. Bach in a series of twelve marathon recitals—a huge feat which has been undertaken by very few keyboard players. After her performances of the complete Well-Tempered Clavier at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival, the critic of the London Times wrote, “…the freshness of Hewitt’s playing made it sound as though no one had played this music before.”
Conducting concertos of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven from the piano, Angela has led the Toronto Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Copenhagen Philharmonic, the Lucerne Festival Strings, the Kammerorchester Basel, the Vancouver Symphony, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Britten Sinfonia, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the Salzburg Camerata, the orchestra of RAI Torino, the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa in Japan, and in 2019 made her debut playing and conducting Bach with the Vienna Tonkünstler Orchestra in Vienna’s Musikverein.
Along with performing a vast amount of the standard repertoire, Angela has also commissioned new works including two piano concertos: the Second Piano Concerto of Dominic Muldowney (premiered with the BBC Symphony in 2002); and in 2017 “Nameless Seas” by Canadian-Finnish composer Matthew Whittall (with the National Arts Centre Orchestra). Canadian composers such as Oskar Morawetz, Steven Gellman, Gary Kulesha, David McIntyre, and Patrick Cardy also wrote pieces dedicated to her. In 2010 she commissioned seven composers from around the world to write short pieces inspired by Bach which were published in a collection (along with several of her own Bach transcriptions) entitled “Angela Hewitt’s Bach Book”. In February 2022 she was presented with The Oskar Morawetz Award for Excellence in Music Performance by the Ontario Arts Council.
Described as “one of the busiest pianists on earth” by London’s Evening Standard (2005), Angela also devotes herself to nurturing new talent. Her masterclasses, both around the world and online, are hugely appreciated, and every few years she gives a week-long masterclass in Italy for gifted pianists. She was also part of Piano Six from 1994-2004: a project which took live music into the remote communities of Canada—giving concerts, masterclasses, and playing for school children across the country. Her writings on music include all the liner notes for her CD recordings as well as several book reviews for the Times Literary Supplement.
In 2005, Angela launched the Trasimeno Music Festival in the heart of Umbria, Italy of which she is Artistic Director. An annual event, it draws an international audience to stunning venues including the Castle of the Knights of Malta in Magione (near Perugia) on the shores of Lake Trasimeno. Seven concerts in seven days feature Hewitt as recitalist, chamber musician, song accompanist, and conductor, working with both established and young artists of her choosing. Involving writers and actors in the programming has been a particular pleasure for her, and she has gone on to perform with many of them elsewhere: with authors Ian McEwan and Julian Barnes in London, Vienna, and New York; and with actor Roger Allam in Venice and at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. Her recordings and live performances have featured in such films as The Tree of Life (2011), The Life Aquatic (2004), The Impassioned Eye (2003)—a documentary on Henri Cartier-Bresson—and in 2018 The Children Act (based on the novel by Ian McEwan and starring Emma Thompson).
As an Ambassador for “Orkidstra”– a Sistema-inspired social development program in Ottawa’s inner city, she brings attention to how music can bring children and young adults together through the joy of making music and learning an instrument, as well as how it teaches valuable skills such as commitment, teamwork and tolerance.
Her frequent masterclasses are hugely appreciated. When all concert activity abruptly stopped in spring 2020 due to the pandemic, Angela went online to share daily offerings of short pieces—many of which form the basis of teaching material. Her fans were thrilled, and she was happy to inspire them and stay in touch.
In July 2022 Angela was Chairman of the Jury of the prestigious International Bach Competition in Leipzig (piano category). The upcoming 2022-23 season sees her performing with orchestras in Finland, Denmark, Montreal, Ottawa, Victoria BC, Prague, Germany, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in New York. Recitals take her to, among others, Barcelona, San Francisco, Seattle, Vienna, Amsterdam, Cambridge, Leipzig, and the famous La Fenice Opera House in Venice. She will give masterclasses for young pianists at the Royal College of Music, London, at the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance (Nova Scotia), at Northwestern University (Illinois) and the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota. She is also an artist-in-residence at London’s Wigmore Hall.
In 2006 Angela was awarded an OBE from Queen Elizabeth II in her 80th birthday honours. A frequent guest on BBC Radio, she was invited to be the sole live performer in the two hours of classical music broadcast on BBC Radio 3 immediately following the funeral and committal of Queen Elizabeth II on September 19, 2022. In 2015 Angela was promoted to a Companion of the Order of Canada—her country’s highest honour. She was “Artist of the Year” at the 2006 Gramophone Awards, “Instrumentalist of the Year” at the 2010 MIDEM Classical Awards at Cannes, and in 2018 received the Governor General’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Ottawa. She is a member of the Royal Society of Canada, has seven honorary doctorates, and is a Visiting Fellow of Peterhouse College, Cambridge.
“It was a positive sensation. The Canadian pianist is one of the reliably mesmerising musicians of the day. You sit entranced…. It would have been more accurate to say I was floating just below the ceiling. She seems to me the complete performer, gifted not only with fingers that imprint each note with a svelte newness and a mind that is not deflected by such precision work from calmly surmising the larger structure, but also with the ability to convey a spiritual seriousness that nonetheless does not exclude an utter charm.”
Paul Driver writing of her Wigmore Hall recital in September 2003 in The Sunday Times.
“An instant link from head and heart to fingertips
What draws the listener to Angela Hewitt… has to do with contact. Most piano performances arrive in translation: the inner musician making a decision, then issuing a command that makes its way through the body onto the keyboard and into the ear. The process alters the results. Ms. Hewitt is one of those rare musicians who seem to get something into their heads and hearts and find it at their fingertips instantaneously. To fuel this leap must require a fund of psychic energy beyond the average capacity. Good musicians are good athletes, not in the muscular sense but in the staying power of their imaginations. This pianist’s resolve to imbue every musical moment with an unrelenting sense of theater would exhaust most of us in 10 minutes.”
Bernard Holland in The New York Times, February 2007
Yoav Levanon
- July 27
Yoav Levanon
“At the age of 19, Israeli pianist Yoav Levanon already shows tremendous power and maturity”, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung commented on the young pianist’s impressive appearance at the 2022 Europa Open Air in Frankfurt where he performed Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Alain Altinoglu. The televised concert took place in front of an audience of 25,000 at site and almost half a million viewers worldwide.
Following on from his recital debut at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London in early 2022, the 2022/23 season sees Yoav Levanon perform solo recitals at Boulez Saal in Berlin, Grand Auditorium de Radio France in Paris, Munich’s Prinzregententheater, Settimane Musicali di Ascona and the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad as well as on a tour of the US for the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Invitations from orchestras will lead him to the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Israel Chamber Orchestra and the North Netherlands Orchestra on tour in the Netherlands to include a stop at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Previous appearances include a solo performance in a “Piano Summit” presented by Martha Argerich at Schloss Elmau followed by a recital at the Piano aux Jacobins Festival in Toulouse and a recital at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. His performance was highly praised in a critic in Diapason: “Yoav Levanon is not only a stunning virtuoso. His assertive interpretative choices already make him an authentic musician, who has everything to become one of the major pianists of this century.”
At the beginning of 2021, Yoav Levanon took part in a filmed project with Daniel Barenboim and soon after he signed an exclusive recording agreement with Warner Classics. His debut album A Monument for Beethoven with the label was released in May 2022. It attracted great attention from reviewers worldwide and garnered many excellent reviews.
Yoav Levanon first appeared on stage at the age of 4 and soon became a winner of his first National Piano Competition in Israel. He won his first Gold Medal at an International Piano Competition in the USA a year later and performed on the prestigious stage of Carnegie Hall in New York. Following his orchestral debut with the Israel Chamber Orchestra he went on to take part in the Tsinandali Festival, Georgia, where he played Mozart and Bach Concertos for Two Pianos and Orchestra with acclaimed pianist Sergei Babayan. Later he received the ”Young Talent Award” of the Fundación Excelentia and performed in a ceremony at the National Auditorium Madrid in the presence of Queen Sofia. During 2018 Yoav performed Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2019, Yoav appeared as one of the youngest pianists ever in the festival history of the renowned Verbier Festival and was celebrated a "discovery". His debut solo recital, broadcast globally on medici.tv, gained the largest online audience of any of the 2019 Festival’s events.
Yoav Levanon is guided by top piano professors and musicians in Israel and abroad. He was privileged to take part in the ‘Piano Program for Outstanding Young Pianists’ at the Jerusalem Music Center, working with the prestigious American concert pianist Murray Perahia as well as working under the guidance of distinguished pianist Sir Andras Schiff in his artist performance studio at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin.
Last Editions
Artists:2024
Teresa da Palma Pereira
- June 30
Teresa da Palma Pereira
After finishing her studies at Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa with the maximum classification under the supervision of the pianist Tania Achot, and a master's degree in piano performance at Catholic University of Porto with Filipe Pinto Ribeiro, she continued her musical studies at Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel with Jan Michiels and in Madrid with Claudio Mehner. She obtained her PHD degree in 2015 with “Summa cum laude” at the Escola das Artes of the Catholic University Porto under the orientation of the pianist Sofia Lourenço and the composer Paulo Ferreira Lopes.
She won several national and international prizes, including “Maria Campina” and “Princess Lalla Meryem”, and performed as soloist with the Brussels Chamber Orchestra, as a prize of Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel Competition for students of all instruments. She has played, since 2006, in countries as France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Brazil and China, as well as in the main Portuguese festivals and concert halls, including Dias da Música, Sintra Festival, Oeiras Festival, Mafra Festival, Centro Cultural de Belém, Auditório Ruy de Carvalho, Centro Cultural de Cascais and Olga Cadaval Cultural Center, as soloist and with the leading Portuguese orchestras and conductors.
She is the author of the book "Schumann´s Carnaval: work of genius and madness" (based in her PhD dissertation and with a preface of Professor Mário de Vieira de Carvalho) and has recorded five CDs: "Waltz Transfigured" with works by Schubert and Schumann, “Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1" with Orquestra do Norte, "Encounter", with works by Mozart and Schumann, "Identity", with music by Debussy, Prokofiev and Liszt and most recent “Terra”, with works by Mussorgsky, Bartók, Albéniz.
Pianist of great originality, Teresa da Palma Pereira has been dedicated, in the last years, to a set of projects that aim to bring erudite music to new audiences, performing several cycles of commented recitals, as "Communication with music", "Classics outdoors", Classics for All" and " Classics in the Bookstore", at Fundação Portuguesa das Comunicações, Palace of the Aciprestes, in Linda-a-Velha, social quarters and the bookstore “Ler Devagar”, in Alcântara, respectively.
She´s also the Artistic Director of the Oeiras International Piano Festival since 2018.
Yeol Eum Son
- July 7
Yeol Eum Son
Poetic elegance, an innate feeling for expressive nuance and the power to project bold, dramatic contrasts are among the arresting attributes of Yeol Eum Son’s pianism. Her refined artistry
rises from breathtaking technical control and a profound empathy for the emotional temper of the works within her strikingly wide repertoire. She is driven above all by her natural
curiosity to explore a multitude of musical genres and styles and the desire to reveal what she describes as the “pure essence” of everything she performs. Yeol Eum refuses to impose
limits on her artistic freedom and remains determined to explore new artistic territory. Her choice of repertoire, which spans everything from the works of Bach and Mozart to those of Shchedrin and Kapustin, is guided chiefly by the quality and depth of the music.
In high demand as recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber musician, Yeol Eum has won critical plaudits for the profound insights and intelligence of her interpretations. Her development as an all-round artist has gained from collaborations with conductors as diverse as Lorin Maazel, Dmitri Kitajenko, Valery Gergiev, Antonio Pappano, Andrew Manze, Jaime Martin, Jun Märkl, Roberto González-Monjas, Jonathon Heyward, Ryan Bancroft, Pablo Gonzalez, Pietari Inkinen, Eivind Aadland, Joana Carneiro, Anja Bihlmaier, Dima Slobodeniouk, Gergely Madaras, Alexander Shelley and Omer Meir Welber.
During 22/23 season Yeol Eum served as an Artist-in-Residence with the Residentie Orkest in the Hague with performances of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.25, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and I Got Rhythm, Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No.2 and Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. Further season highlights in 2022-23 included a succession of debut performances with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.2), the NDR Radiophilharmonie (Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.4 and Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.2), the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No.1), the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias (Szymanowski’s Symphony No.4), Musikkollegium Winterthur (Ravel’s Piano
Concerto in G major), the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.27), the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.2 and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.23), the Sydney Symphony (Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.20), Melbourne Symphony (Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major) , Tasmanian Symphony (Chopin’s Piano Concerto No.2) and Auckland Philharmonia (Chopin Piano Concerto No.2). Yeol Eum closed the season with her debuts at the Edinburgh International Festival, Rosendal Chamber Music Festival and return visit at the Helsingborg Piano Festival Across 23/24 season, Yeol Eum collaborates ones again with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern at home in Germany and on tour in South Korea featuring Rachmaninov’s P i an o C on c e r to No. 3 , Ta sm ani an Sy mph ony w ith R a chm anin ov’s Piano Concerto No.3 and Auckland Philharmonia with the Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.24. Yeol Eum makes debuts with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra performing Chopin’s Piano Concerto No.2, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra performing Britten’s Piano Concerto, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.20 , NAC Orchestra performing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No.2, West Australian Symphony Orchestra with Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.3 and Tenerife Symphony with the Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.3.
She also returns to the Melbourne recital centre, Adelaide International Piano Series, Mosel Music Festival and makes recital debuts at the Singapore International Piano Festival and International Piano Festival of Oeiras, Portugal.
The international reach of her work of the past seasons s clearly reflected in collaborations with, among others, the Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin, the Gürzenich, Dresden Philharmonic and Tonkünstler Orchestras, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Orchestre national d’Île-de-France, Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Aurora Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic at the 2019 BBC Proms, BBC Scottish, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Budapest Festival, Helsinki, and Bergen Philharmonic, Basel Symphony, Castilla y León Symphony and Spanish Radio and Television Symphony orchestras, Singapore Symphony, San Diego and Detroit Symphony and the Mariinsky Orchestra.
Yeol Eum Son, born in Wonju, South Korea in 1986, received her first piano lessons at the age of three-and-a-half. She was among the prize winners at the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in 1997 and won the Oberlin International Piano Competition two years later. Yeol Eum studied at Korea National University of Arts and continued her training with Professor Arie Vardi at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover.
Yeol Eum attracted international attention when she secured second prize and the Best Chamber Music Performance at the 2009 Van Cliburn Competition. She underlined her position among the most gifted artists of her generation at the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition, where she won the Silver Medal and received the coveted competition’s prizes for Best Chamber Concerto Performance and Best Performance of the Commissioned Work.
Mecenas: Apoios:Over the past decade Yeol Eum has achieved global acclaim not least for her interpretations of Mozart’s piano concertos. In 2016 she joined the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and Sir Neville Marriner in what proved to be the conductor’s final recording, setting down a radiant interpretation of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.21 for Onyx Classics. She made her
London debut at Cadogan Hall with the same work and orchestra in 2018 and enchanted the audience at the Royal Albert Hall the following year with Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.15 for her debut at the BBC Proms.
In addition to her all-Mozart album for Onyx (2018) most recently Yeol Eum released her debut on Naïve in March 2023 with a stunning boxset of Mozart’s Complete Piano Sonatas, the album earned early acclaim from the international classical press, including being named Classic FM’s Album of the Week. Yeol Eum’s discography also includes Modern Times, an album of works by Berg, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Ravel (Decca, 2016), a recording of Schumann’s Fantasy in C, Kreisleriana and Arabesque (Onyx, 2020) and a disc devoted to Nikolai Kapustin’s Eight Concert Etudes, Piano Sonata No.2 and other representative compositions (Onyx, 2021).
Teresa da Palma Pereira
- July 2
Teresa da Palma Pereira
After finishing her studies at Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa with the maximum classification under the supervision of the pianist Tania Achot, and a master’s degree in piano performance at Catholic University of Porto with Filipe Pinto Ribeiro, she continued her musical studies at Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel with Jan Michiels and in Madrid with Claudio Mehner.
She obtained her PHD degree in 2015 with “Magna cum laude” at the Escola das Artes of the Catholic University Porto under the orientation of the pianist Sofia Lourenço and the composer Paulo Ferreira Lopes. She won several national and international prizes, including “Maria Campina” and “Princess Lalla Meryem”, and performed as soloist with the Brussels Chamber Orchestra, as a prize of Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel Competition for students of all instruments. She has played, since 2006, in countries as France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Brazil and China, as well as in the main Portuguese festivals and concert halls, including Dias da Música, Sintra Festival, Oeiras Festival, Mafra Festival, Centro Cultural de Belém, Auditório Ruy de Carvalho, Centro Cultural de Cascais and Olga Cadaval Cultural Center, as soloist and with the leading Portuguese orchestras and conductors. She was the guest artist in 2023 in the tribute to Madalena Azeredo Perdigão on the occasion of her centenary in Figueira da Foz and was also the guest pianist in the IAC’s tribute to its honorary president Manuela Eanes at the Gulbenkian Foundation. She is the author of the book “Schumann´s Carnaval: work of genius and madness” (based in her PhD dissertation and with a preface of Professor Mário de Vieira de Carvalho) and has recorded five CDs: “Waltz Transfigured” with works by Schubert and Schumann, “Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1” with Orquestra do Norte, “Encounter”, with works by Mozart and Schumann, “Identity”, with music by Debussy, Prokofiev and Liszt and most recent “Terra”, with works by Mussorgsky, Bartók, Albéniz. Pianist of great originality, Teresa da Palma Pereira has been dedicated, in the last years, to a set of projects that aim to bring erudite music to new audiences, performing several cycles of commented recitals, as “Communication with music”, “Classics outdoors”, Classics for All” and “ Classics in the Bookstore”, at Fundação Portuguesa das Comunicações, Palace of the Aciprestes, in Linda-a-Velha, social quarters and the bookstore “Ler Devagar”, in Alcântara, respectively. She´s also the Artistic Director of the Oeiras International Piano Festival since 2018. She organizes Oeiras International Piano Masterclasses and the Piano Ccourses for Beginners (Fipo Piano Courses)
Yoav Levanon
- July 14
Yoav Levanon
“At the age of 19, Israeli pianist Yoav Levanon already shows tremendous power and maturity”, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung commented on the young pianist’s impressive appearance at the 2022 Europa Open Air in Frankfurt where he performed Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Alain Altinoglu. The televised concert took place in front of an audience of 25,000 at site and almost half a million viewers worldwide.
Following on from his recital debut at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London in early 2022, the 2022/23 season saw Yoav Levanon perform solo recitals at Boulez Saal in Berlin, Grand Auditorium de Radio France in Paris, Munich’s Prinzregententheater, Settimane Musicali di Ascona and the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad as well as on a tour of the US for the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Invitations from orchestras led him to the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Israel Chamber Orchestra and the North Netherlands Orchestra on tour in the Netherlands to include a stop at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Previous appearances included a solo performance in a “Piano Summit” presented by Martha Argerich at Schloss Elmau followed by a recital at the Piano aux Jacobins Festival in Toulouse and a recital at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. His performance was highly praised in a critic in Diapason: “Yoav Levanon is not only a stunning virtuoso.
His assertive interpretative choices already make him an authentic musician, who has everything to become one of the major pianists of this century.”
At the beginning of 2021, Yoav Levanon took part in a filmed project with Daniel Barenboim and soon after he signed an exclusive recording agreement with Warner Classics. His debut album A Monument for Beethoven with the label was released in May 2022.
It attracted great attention from reviewers worldwide and garnered many excellent reviews.
Yoav Levanon first appeared on stage at the age of 4 and soon became a winner of his first National Piano Competition in Israel. He won his first Gold Medal at an International Piano
Competition in the USA a year later and performed on the prestigious stage of Carnegie Hall in New York. Following his orchestral debut with the Israel Chamber Orchestra he went on to take part in the Tsinandali Festival, Georgia, where he played Mozart and Bach Concertos for Two Pianos and Orchestra with acclaimed pianist Sergei Babayan. Later he received the ”Young Talent Award” of the Fundación Excelentia and performed in a ceremony at the National Auditorium Madrid in the presence of Queen Sofia. During 2018 Yoav performed Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2019, Yoav appeared as one of the youngest pianists ever in the festival history of the renowned Verbier Festival and was celebrated a “discovery”. His debut solo recital, broadcast globally on medici.tv, gained the largest online audience of any of the
2019 Festival’s events.
Yoav Levanon is guided by top piano professors and musicians in Israel and abroad. He was privileged to take part in the ‘Piano Program for Outstanding Young Pianists’ at the Jerusalem Music Center, working with the prestigious American concert pianist Murray Perahia as well as working under the guidance of distinguished pianist Sir Andras Schiff in his artist performance studio at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin.
Yulianna Avdeeva
- July 21
Yulianna Avdeeva
Yulianna Avdeeva gained worldwide recognition at the 2010 Chopin Competition, where she won First Prize with a “detailed way of playing” that “matched Chopin’s own” (The Telegraph). A pianist of fiery temperament and virtuosity, Avdeeva plays with power, conviction, and sensibility, having won over audiences all over the world.
A favorite artist in Europe with recurring concert engagements at the Warsaw Philharmonic or Rudolfinum in Prague, Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin, Vienna Konzerthaus and Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Yulianna has also given concerts for Ukrainian Relief, including one together with Anne-Sophie Mutter at the Lucerne Chamber Music Festival.
Her 2022-23 season begins with a Tippet Rise Festival recital in the US, followed later by a Carnegie Hall debut recital. She performs with the Vienna Symphony and after an acclaimed first collaboration in 2021 tours again with Teodor Currentzis and SWR Symphony in Munich, Hamburg and Vienna. In mid-winter she returns to Japan with concerts in Tokyo, Osaka, Yokohama and Kyoto to be followed with concerto appearances with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony (Andris Poga), RAI National Orchestra (Juraj Valčuha), Bergen Philharmonic (Petr Popelka), Basque National Orchestra (Robert Trevino) and Camerata Salzburg (Finnegan Downie Dear). She will also perform in recitals in Leipzig, Florence, Madrid, Barcelona, Aarhus and Naples.
Among her other extensive orchestral collaborators are the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Finnish and Danish Radio Symphonies, Czech Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Dresden Philharmonic, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Kremerata Baltica, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, KBS Symphony and Yomiuri Nippon Symphony.
A dedicated chamber musician, Yulianna has toured regularly throughout Europe with violinists Julia Fischer and Gidon Kremer, with appearances at Wigmore Hall, Tonhalle Zurich, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, among others. In addition to being a regular guest at Festival Chopin Warsaw and the Festival International de Piano La Roque d’Anthéron, recent seasons have seen Avdeeva in recital at the Salzburg Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Boulez Saal, Vienna Konzerthaus, Palau de la Música Catalana, Musikfest Bremen, Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival and Shostakovich Festival Saxony.
Avdeeva’s recordings of Chopin concertos with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and Frans Brüggen (2013), her 3 solo albums featuring works by Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, and Prokofiev (2014, 2016, 2017), and her collaboration with Gidon Kremer in Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s chamber music (2017 and 2019) comprise a formidable record of Yulianna’s art topped off by a Deutsche Grammophon (2019) solo recording as part of a milestone collection dedicated to Chopin Competition Gold Medalists.
Piano aficionados around the world also enjoy her educational online streaming project, the #AvdeevaBachProject, which she started during the lockdown gaining more than half a million views.
Piotr Anderszewski
- July 28
Piotr Anderszewski
olish pianist Piotr Anderszewski is one of the most notable musicians of his generation. He performs in recital in prestigious halls such as the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Philharmonie in Berlin, the Wigmore Hall in London, New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris or the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. As soloist of concert, he has played with many of the world’s leading orchestras, also frequently collaborating in the double role of soloist and director orchestra, namely with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe or the Camerata Salzburg, among others.: In this season, he returned to artistic interaction with the Orchestra Gulbenkian, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Kammerakademie Potsdam, the Tokyo NHK Symphony, the Finnish Radio Symphony or the Radio France Philharmonic, among other orchestras. In recital, performs at the Philharmonie de Paris, at the Musikverein in Vienna, at the Alte Oper Frankfurt and other important concert halls in Europe and Asia.
Piotr Anderszewski studied at the Chopin Academy in Warsaw and Strasbourg and Lyon Conservatories. He received several distinctions, including the Gilmore Prize, the Szymanowski Prize and the Royal Philharmonic Society. His recordings for Warner Classics/Erato, exclusively since 2000, have received several awards, including the Gramophone, the ECHO Classic, BBC Music Magazine’s “Record of the Year” and nominations for the Grammys.
Piotr Anderszewski is the central figure in two of Bruno’s Monsaing documentaries: In Piotr Anderszewski plays the Diabelli Variations (2001) the pianist presents his particular relationship
with the Diabelli Variations of Beethoven; Unquiet Traveler (2008) is an unusual portrait of Anderszewski, capturing the pianist’s reflections on music, interpretation and its Polish and Hungarian roots. In 2016, Anderszewski himself occupied the place behind the camera to explore his relationship with Warsaw, in a film titled Je m’appelle Varsovie.
Artists:2023
Javier Perianes
- July 9
Javier Perianes
The international career of Javier Perianes has led him to perform in the most prestigious concert halls, with the world’s foremost orchestras, collaborating with conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Charles Dutoit, Zubin Mehta, Gustavo Dudamel, Klaus Mäkelä, Sakari Oramo, Yuri Temirkanov, Gianandrea Noseda, Gustavo Gimeno, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Simone Young, Juanjo Mena, Ivan Fischer, Vladimir Jurowski, François-Xavier Roth, Daniel Harding, and appearing at festivals such as the BBC Proms, Lucerne, La Roque d’Anthéron, Grafenegg, Prague Spring, Ravello, Granada, Vail, Blossom and Ravinia. He was awarded the ‘National Music Prize’ in 2012 by the Ministry of Culture of Spain and named Artist of the Year at the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) in 2019. In June 2021 he was awarded the Granada Festival Medal of Honour in recognition of his long-standing relationship with the Festival, where he was also Artist in Residence for 2021.
The 2021/22 season features an array of high-profile concerts. Perianes makes his season-debuts with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Aurora Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris and Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra. He gives the world premiere of the new Piano Concerto by Jimmy López at London’s Royal Festival Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Klaus Mäkelä, gives his first recital at the Boulez Saal in Berlin, and returns to San Francisco Symphony and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Gustavo Gimeno. Play-direct appearances include Real Filarmonía de Galicia, Asturias Symphony Orchestra and Orquesta Ciudad de Granada. Perianes also visits South America, returning to the Orquestra Simfonica do Estado de Sao Paulo (OSESP) to perform the Jimmy López Piano Concerto, and give a solo recital.
Career highlights have included concerts with Wiener Philhamoniker, Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Yomiuri Nippon and Danish National Symphony orchestras, Oslo, London, New York, Los Angeles and Czech Philharmonic orchestras, Orchestre de Paris, Cleveland, Royal Concertgebouw, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and Philharmonia orchestras, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra and Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin.
Perianes records exclusively for harmonia mundi. His most recent album with the label features Chopin’s Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3 interspersed with the three Mazurkas from Op. 63.
Yoav Levanon
- July 16
Yoav Levanon
“At the age of 19, Israeli pianist Yoav Levanon already shows tremendous power and maturity”, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung commented on the young pianist’s impressive appearance at the 2022 Europa Open Air in Frankfurt where he performed Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Alain Altinoglu. The televised concert took place in front of an audience of 25,000 at site and almost half a million viewers worldwide.
Following on from his recital debut at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London in early 2022, the 2022/23 season sees Yoav Levanon perform solo recitals at Boulez Saal in Berlin, Grand Auditorium de Radio France in Paris, Munich’s Prinzregententheater, Settimane Musicali di Ascona and the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad as well as on a tour of the US for the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Invitations from orchestras will lead him to the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Israel Chamber Orchestra and the North Netherlands Orchestra on tour in the Netherlands to include a stop at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Previous appearances include a solo performance in a “Piano Summit” presented by Martha Argerich at Schloss Elmau followed by a recital at the Piano aux Jacobins Festival in Toulouse and a recital at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. His performance was highly praised in a critic in Diapason: “Yoav Levanon is not only a stunning virtuoso. His assertive interpretative choices already make him an authentic musician, who has everything to become one of the major pianists of this century.”
At the beginning of 2021, Yoav Levanon took part in a filmed project with Daniel Barenboim and soon after he signed an exclusive recording agreement with Warner Classics. His debut album A Monument for Beethoven with the label was released in May 2022. It attracted great attention from reviewers worldwide and garnered many excellent reviews.
Yoav Levanon first appeared on stage at the age of 4 and soon became a winner of his first National Piano Competition in Israel. He won his first Gold Medal at an International Piano Competition in the USA a year later and performed on the prestigious stage of Carnegie Hall in New York. Following his orchestral debut with the Israel Chamber Orchestra he went on to take part in the Tsinandali Festival, Georgia, where he played Mozart and Bach Concertos for Two Pianos and Orchestra with acclaimed pianist Sergei Babayan. Later he received the ‘”Young Talent Award” of the Fundación Excelentia and performed in a ceremony at the National Auditorium Madrid in the presence of Queen Sofia. During 2018 Yoav performed Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2019, Yoav appeared as one of the youngest pianists ever in the festival history of the renowned Verbier Festival and was celebrated a "discovery". His debut solo recital, broadcast globally on medici.tv, gained the largest online audience of any of the 2019 Festival’s events.
Yoav Levanon is guided by top piano professors and musicians in Israel and abroad. He was privileged to take part in the ‘Piano Program for Outstanding Young Pianists’ at the Jerusalem Music Center, working with the prestigious American concert pianist Murray Perahia as well as working under the guidance of distinguished pianist Sir Andras Schiff in his artist performance studio at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin.
Yulianna Avdeeva
- July 23
Yulianna Avdeeva
Yulianna Avdeeva gained worldwide recognition at the 2010 Chopin Competition, where she won First Prize with a “detailed way of playing” that “matched Chopin’s own” (The Telegraph). A pianist of fiery temperament and virtuosity, Avdeeva plays with power, conviction, and sensibility, having won over audiences all over the world.
A favorite artist in Europe with recurring concert engagements at the Warsaw Philharmonic or Rudolfinum in Prague, Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin, Vienna Konzerthaus and Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Yulianna has also given concerts for Ukrainian Relief, including one together with Anne-Sophie Mutter at the Lucerne Chamber Music Festival.
Her 2022-23 season begins with a Tippet Rise Festival recital in the US, followed later by a Carnegie Hall debut recital. She performs with the Vienna Symphony and after an acclaimed first collaboration in 2021 tours again with Teodor Currentzis and SWR Symphony in Munich, Hamburg and Vienna. In mid-winter she returns to Japan with concerts in Tokyo, Osaka, Yokohama and Kyoto to be followed with concerto appearances with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony (Andris Poga), RAI National Orchestra (Juraj Valčuha), Bergen Philharmonic (Petr Popelka), Basque National Orchestra (Robert Trevino) and Camerata Salzburg (Finnegan Downie Dear). She will also perform in recitals in Leipzig, Florence, Madrid, Barcelona, Aarhus and Naples.
Among her other extensive orchestral collaborators are the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Finnish and Danish Radio Symphonies, Czech Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Dresden Philharmonic, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Kremerata Baltica, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, KBS Symphony and Yomiuri Nippon Symphony.
A dedicated chamber musician, Yulianna has toured regularly throughout Europe with violinists Julia Fischer and Gidon Kremer, with appearances at Wigmore Hall, Tonhalle Zurich, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, among others. In addition to being a regular guest at Festival Chopin Warsaw and the Festival International de Piano La Roque d’Anthéron, recent seasons have seen Avdeeva in recital at the Salzburg Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Boulez Saal, Vienna Konzerthaus, Palau de la Música Catalana, Musikfest Bremen, Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival and Shostakovich Festival Saxony.
Avdeeva’s recordings of Chopin concertos with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and Frans Brüggen (2013), her 3 solo albums featuring works by Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, and Prokofiev (2014, 2016, 2017), and her collaboration with Gidon Kremer in Mieczyslaw Weinberg's chamber music (2017 and 2019) comprise a formidable record of Yulianna’s art topped off by a Deutsche Grammophon (2019) solo recording as part of a milestone collection dedicated to Chopin Competition Gold Medalists.
Piano aficionados around the world also enjoy her educational online streaming project, the #AvdeevaBachProject, which she started during the lockdown gaining more than half a million views.
Rui Massena
- July 29
Rui Massena
Rui Massena was introduced to music at a very young age. He played his first piano piece at the age of five, was eight when he created his first composition and has been working as a conductor since the age of 27. That was about the time Rui took up the Artistic Direction and the role of Principal Conductor in Madeira’s Classical Orchestra, a position he kept for 12 years.
Between 2001 and 2013, Massena premiered dozens of works and con- ducted over 30 national and international notorious orchestras in world-re- nowned concert halls in 14 countries. In 2010, the ‘European Capital of Culture – Guimarães 2012’ chose Massena to program the Music Cluster of the project, a body of work that he began developing in 2010 and through which he founded the Orchestra ‘Fundação Orquestra Estúdio’. Masse- na has also conducted, written and arranged in symphonic language for countless artists. Music was always the centerpiece of Rui Massena’s life. After thirteen years of non-stop weekly conducting, Massena made the decision to finally give space to his old composing dream.
Since 2015, he started a solo career with his own compositions as a Uni- versal Music Artist, and launched four albums and an EP until today. His music is enjoyed by fans from over 90 countries and Rui Massena has been selected as a contemporary global talent by the prestigious publish- er ‘Deutsche Grammophon’.
In 2019, Massena made his debut in film scoring in the short film “Carnaval Sujo”, directed by José Miguel Moreira, and composed and performed the soundtrack for two TV Films (2021), “Esperança” directed by Cláudia Cle- mente and “Medo” directed by Patríca Sequeira, included in the film trilogy “Na Porta ao Lado”, focusing on the scourge of domestic violence. In 2022, he composed and performed for the film “La Manzana de Oro”, directed by Jaime Chávarri, a prestigious name in the Spanish cinematographic world and for the documentary “Triunfo do saber” directed by Frank Saalfeld.
In 2021, was awarded the Gold Medal of Cultural and Scientific Merit, from the city of Porto, in recognition of his continued contribution to the city. This medal joins many others Rui has been awarded throughout his carrer, including the Gold Medal os Cultural and Scientific Merit from his home- town, as well as the Medal of Cultural Merit of Brazil’s Academy of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
Rui Massena’s music is today alongside great composers such as Philip glass and Ludovico Einaudi, with one of their compositions, Valsa, is part of the compilation ‘EXPO 1’ by Deutsche Grammophon, which features music by leading composers ‘Neo-Classics’ nowadays. In 2021, invited by the publisher, alongside Maria João Pires and 15 other world-class per- formers and composers, participated in the World Piano Day 21 festival, broadcasted all around the world.
Today, Rui works as a conductor, composer, producer and performer, based in his studio, near Granja’s beach, in the creative city of Porto. He plays and conduct his music live in concert halls all around the world.
Alexei Volodin
- July 30
Alexei Volodin
Acclaimed for his highly sensitive touch and technical brilliance, Alexei Volodin is in demand by orchestras at the highest level. He possesses an extraordinarily diverse repertoire from Beethoven and Brahms through Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev and Scriabin, to Shchedrin and Medtner.
Highlights of the 2022/23 season include returns to Singapore Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, and Euskadiko Orkestra, and first appearances with Kyoto Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal. Volodin will join Orchestre de chambre fribourgeois at Besançon International Music Festival and tour with Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen throughout Belgium and the Netherlands with Chopin Piano Concerto No.1. He returns to SWR Symphonieorchester in a chamber concert of Franck and Schoenberg at the Pentecost Festival Baden-Baden and joins forces with Igor Levit for duo performances at Wigmore Hall and Lucerne Piano Festival.
Previous seasons have included performances with Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, NCPA Orchestra China, BBC Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, The Mariinsky Orchestra and St Petersburg Philharmonic, working with conductors Semyon Bychkov, Stanislav Kochanovsky and Robert Trevino.
Volodin regularly appears in recital in venues such as Wiener Konzerthaus, Barcelona’s Palau de la Música, Mariinsky Theatre, Paris’ Philharmonie, Alte Oper Frankfurt and Madrid’s Auditorio Nacional de Música. This season he performs at Tonhalle Zürich, Geneva, Taipei National Concert Hall, Lithuanian National Philharmonic Hall, and additional dates in Spain.
An active chamber musician, he has a long-standing collaboration with many artists including Sol Gabetta. Previous chamber partners include Janine Jansen, Julian Rachlin, and Mischa Maisky, as well as the Borodin Quartet, Modigliani Quartet, Cuarteto Casals and Cremona Quartet.
Volodin’s latest album with the Mariinsky label was Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No.4, conducted by Gergiev. Recording for Challenge Classics, Volodin’s disc of solo Rachmaninov works was released in 2013. He also recorded a solo album of Schumann, Ravel and Scriabin, and his earlier Chopin disc won a Choc de Classica and was awarded five stars by Diapason.
A regular artist at festivals, Volodin has performed at Kaposvár International Chamber Music Festival, Festival Les nuits du Château de la Moutte, Variations Musicales de Tannay, Bad Kissingen Sommer Festival, La Roque d’Anthéron, Les Rencontres Musicales d’Évian, Festival La Folle Journée, the White Nights Festival in St Petersburg, St. Magnus International Festival, Interharmony Festival, and the Moscow Easter Festival.
Born in 1977 in Leningrad, Alexei Volodin studied at Moscow’s Gnessin Academy and later with Eliso Virsaladze at the Moscow Conservatoire. In 2001, he continued his studies at the International Piano Academy Lake Como and gained international recognition following his victory at the International Géza Anda Competition in Zürich in 2003.
Alexei Volodin is an exclusive Steinway artist.
Artists:2022
Teresa da Palma Pereira
- June 26
Teresa da Palma Pereira
After finishing her studies at Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa with the maximum classification under the supervision of the pianist Tania Achot, and a master's degree in piano performance at Catholic University of Porto with Filipe Pinto Ribeiro, she continued her musical studies at Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel with Jan Michiels and in Madrid with Claudio Mehner. She obtained her PHD degree in 2015 with “Summa cum laude” at the Escola das Artes of the Catholic University Porto under the orientation of the pianist Sofia Lourenço and the composer Paulo Ferreira Lopes.
She won several national and international prizes, including “Maria Campina” and “Princess Lalla Meryem”, and performed as soloist with the Brussels Chamber Orchestra, as a prize of Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel Competition for students of all instruments. She has played, since 2006, in countries as France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Brazil and China, as well as in the main Portuguese festivals and concert halls, including Dias da Música, Sintra Festival, Oeiras Festival, Mafra Festival, Centro Cultural de Belém, Auditório Ruy de Carvalho, Centro Cultural de Cascais and Olga Cadaval Cultural Center, as soloist and with the leading Portuguese orchestras and conductors.
She is the author of the book "Schumann ́s Carnaval: work of genius and madness" (based in her PhD dissertation and with a preface of Professor Mário de Vieira de Carvalho) and has recorded four CDs: "Waltz Transfigured" with works by Schubert and Schumann, “Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1" with Orquestra do Norte, "Encounter", with works by Mozart and Schumann and the most recent "Identity", with music by Debussy, Prokofiev and Liszt.
Pianist of great originality, Teresa da Palma Pereira has been dedicated, in the last years, to a set of projects that aim to bring erudite music to new audiences, performing several cycles of commented recitals, as "Communication with music", "Classics outdoors", Classics for All" and " Classics in the Bookstore", at Fundação Portuguesa das Comunicações, Palace of the Aciprestes, in Linda-a-Velha, social quarters and the bookstore “Ler Devagar”, in Alcântara, respectively.
She ́s also the Artistic Director of the Oeiras International Piano Festival since 2018.
Yoav Levanon
- July 3
Yoav Levanon
“Cuban virtuoso Jorge Luis Prats is an old-fashioned romantic. …after a while it is easy to take his fabulous technique and palette of tonal colours for granted.” – Gramophone
“The best pianist you haven’t heard of”- BBC Music Magazine
“Prats translates wonderfully the slow swagger of music that involves the hips, while preserving the clarity of every detail.”- Diapason
“Even in these technically impressive times, playing of this caliber is rarely encountered”- The Miami Herald
Since May 2007, when Jorge Luis Prats gave his first recital at the Miami International Piano Festival, his career has undergone a dramatic ascent. His debut recitals at the prestigious “Meister Pianisten” series at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam having been received with standing ovations, in 2010 he returned to the same series for the third time, an honor uniquely reserved for Brendel and Sokolov previously).
In May 2010 Jorge Luis replaced Nelson Freire at his Salle Pleyel recital, to a tremendously enthusiastic response from the public and in September of the same year he again triumphed at the festival “Piano aux Jacobins” in Toulouse. Following these successes, he has been invited by the organisers of several prestigious French series to perform in Autumn 2011 at the Grand Interpretes in Lyon, at the Grand Theatre de Aix en Provence, a re-invitation from the Piano 4 Etoiles series at Salle Pleyel and to perform Rachmaninov with the Orchestre de Paris under Paavo Järvi. Jorge Luis has toured Europe, Latin America, China, Japan and Korea and has played with Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony etc. In Mexico, he has performed with the Mexico City Orchestra, the Ofunam Orchestra and the Jalapa Orchestra and in South America with the Columbia Philharmonic, Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra and Caracas Municipal Orchestra.
Regularly invited as professor by the respected institutions such as National University of Columbia in Bogota, National School of the Arts in Havana, the Arts Centre in Mexico, the Conservatory of Cordoba in Spain and Royal Conservatory in Toronto, he was also the Artistic Director of National Orchestra of Cuba from 1985 to 2002.
Jorge Luis Prats was born in Camaguey in Cuba in 1956, studying with Cesar Perez Sentenar, Barbara Diaz Alea, Margot Rojas and Alfredo Diez at National School of Arts. On graduation, he was awarded a scholarship to the Tchaikovsky Conservatory of Moscow where he studied with Rudolf Kerer and he continued his studies at Conservatoire de Paris and later at the Hochschüle für Müsik und Künstler in Vienna with Paul Badura Skoda and Magda Tagliaferro. At 21 years old, Jorge Luis won the first prize at the prestigious Concours Marguerite Long – Jacques Thibaud in Paris as well as the special award of best interpretation of works by Ravel and Jolivet.
Jorge Luis Prats discography includes the first recording ever of Scriabin’s 24 Preludes, concerti by Beethoven, Grieg, Rachmaninov and Chopin as well as works by Cuban composers. His concert at Broward Center for the Performing Arts for the Miami’s International Piano Festival was recorded and released as DVD by VAI.
Jorge Luis has recently signed an exclusive recording contract with Decca and his first recording with them will be Granados by Goyescas, to be released in June 2011.
Olga Kern
- July 9
Olga Kern
With a vivid onstage presence, dazzling technique, and keen musicianship, Russian-American pianist Olga Kern is widely recognized as one of the great artists of her generation, captivating fans and critics alike. She was born into a family of musicians in Russia and began studying piano at the age of five, and at seventeen was awarded first prize at the Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition. In 2001, she jump-started her U.S. career, winning a historic Gold Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas—the first woman to do so in more than thirty years. A Steinway Artist, Ms. Kern is a laureate of a number of international competitions. In 2016 she was Jury Chairman of both the Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition and the first Olga Kern International Piano Competition, where she also holds the title of Artistic Director. In coming seasons, she will continue to serve on the juries of a number of other high-level competitions. Ms. Kern frequently gives masterclasses and since 2017 has served on the piano faculty of the Manhattan School of Music. In 2019, she was appointed the Connie & Marc Jacobson Director of Chamber Music at the Virginia Arts Festival. Highlights of the 2019-20 season included performances with the Allentown Symphony, Grand Rapids Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, Toledo Symphony Orchestra, New Mexico Philharmonic, and the New West Symphony. She also appears as a soloist on a U.S. tour with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine and gives recitals in Orford, Sunriver, Fort Worth, Carmel, and San Francisco. Kern has performed with many prominent orchestras, including the Moscow Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Detroit Symphony, and the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, D.C.), as well as the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, Iceland Symphony, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, Tokyo’s NHK Symphony Orchestra, and the National Youth Orchestra of China, which marked her Chinese debut. She was also a featured soloist on US tours with the Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and during the 2017-18 season served as Artist in Residence at the San Antonio Symphony. Ms. Kern’s discography includes a Harmonia Mundi recording of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Christopher Seaman; her Grammy-nominated disc of Rachmaninoff’s Corelli Variations and other transcriptions; and Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Warsaw Philharmonic and Antoni Wit. Other notable releases include Chopin’s Piano Sonatas No. 2 and 3, and, more recently, SONY’s release of the Rachmaninoff Sonata for Cello and Piano with Sol Gabetta. Ms. Kern is also featured in award-winning documentaries about the 2001 Cliburn Competition: Playing on the Edge, They Came to Play, and Olga’s Journey.
António Rosado
- July 24
António Rosado
Antonio Rosado is a nationally and internationally recognized pianist, result of his talent and taste for diversity, expressed in an extensive piano repertoire that includes works by composers as diverse as Georges Gershwin, Aaron Copland, Isaac Albéniz and Franz Liszt. This versatility allowed him to present for the first time in Portugal, outstanding works as the Sonatas of G. Enescu or the Paraphrases of F. Liszt, being the first Portuguese pianist to perform the complete Preludes and Etudes of Claude Debussy. Also about his recitals can be underlined the interpretation of the complete Mozart and Beethoven Piano Sonatas.
Rosado has performed on stage for the first time at four years of age. His musical studies started with his father and continued at the National Conservatory of Music in Lisbon, where he finished the Piano Superior course, with the highest qualification. At sixteen Rosado left for Paris, and there he came to be a disciple of Aldo Ciccolini at the Music Conservatory and further training took place at Siena and Biella (Italy).
In 1980, took place is debut in concert with the Orchestre National de Toulouse, under the direction of Michel Plasson and since then Rosado has played with numerous international orchestras and notable conductors such as Georg Alexander Albrecht, Moshe Atzmon, Franco Caracciolo, Pierre Dervaux, Arthur Fagen, Leon Fleischer, Silva Pereira, Claudio Scimone, David Stahl, Marc Tardue and Ronald Zollman.
In chamber music he has performed with prestigious musicians such as Aldo Ciccolini, Maurice Gendron, Margarita Zimermann, Gerardo Ribeiro and Paulo Gaio Lima, with whom he played Beethoven's complete works for cello and piano.
Laureate by Maurice Ravel International Academy and the International Academy Perosi, António Rosado was distinguished by the Vianna da Motta International Competition and the International Competition Alfredo Casella in Naples. These awards are the international recognition of his virtuosity and the impetus for a brilliant career, with performing recitals and concerts throughout the world, and participation in various festivals. In the 90s, he was the pianist chosen by TF1 for the recording and transmission of three programs - Spanish and Portuguese music, Liszt and, finally, a recital with music by Beethoven, Prokofiev, Wagner-Liszt.
His first recording was in the 80s, took place in Paris and was dedicated to Enescu. Other albums followed, including the piano works by Vianna da Motta; a commemorative CD of the 150th anniversary of Liszt’s visit to Lisbon; Fantasie by Schumann and Liszt’s Sonata. With violinist Gerardo Ribeiro, Rosado recorded the violin and piano sonatas by Brahms and with the pianist Artur Pizarro, a disc entitled Mozart in Norway. With the NDR Sinfonieorchestra Hamburg, recorded the Concerto No. 2 and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Rachmaninov. In Portugal recorded the two Brahms Concertos with the National Orchestra of Porto, in 2004 all the piano sonatas by Fernando Lopes-Graça and in 2006 the eight suites "In Memoriam Bela Bartok" by the same composer. More recently the Preludes of Armando José Fernandes and Luís de Freitas Branco and, in 2012, Festive Music of Fernando Lopes-Graça. In 2016 was released by Calanda Music, the disc with all Preludes by C. Debussy.
António Rosado holds the prestigious título of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (French Government, 2007).
Jan Michiels
- July 17
Jan Michiels
Jan Michiels studied with Abel Matthys at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. From 1988 to 1993 he studied at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin under the direction of Hans Leygraf - he was awarded an exceptional distinction for his interpretations of Bartók's Second concerto for piano and Ligeti's Etudes. He was Tenuto-laureate in 1988 ; in 1989 he won the international E.Durlet competition. In 1991 he was laureate of the international Queen Elizabeth Competition. In 1992 he was awarded the JeM/ Cera prize for musicians and in 1996 he was signed up as festival star of the Flanders Festival. He is also laureate of the 'Gouden Vleugels/KBC Muziekprijs' 2006.
Jan Michiels is currently active as piano professor in the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel, where he also led the class of contemporary music for eight years. He conducted masterclasses in London, Murcia, Hamburg, Oslo, Montepulciano, Szombathely (Bartokfestival). He is fellow in the 'Platform' (VUB-KCB/The Brussels Model) and prepares a doctorate in the arts with the 'New Prometheus' of Luigi Nono as a guide. He regularly performs as a soloist or with chamber music ensembles (a.o. the Piano Quartet "Tetra Lyre" and a piano duo with Inge Spinette) in several musical centres in Europe and Asia, with conductors such as Angus, Asbury, Baudo, Boreycko, Edwards, Eötvös, Märkl, Meylemans, Nézet-Séguin, Ono, Pfaff, Rahbari, Rundel, Soustrot, Stern, Tabachnik, Tamayo, Zagrosek, Zender - but also with dance-productions of Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker, Vincent Dunoyer and Sen Hea Ha. His repertoire reaches from Bach to today.
Apart from his many radio recordings, he also recorded cd's with works from a.o. Bach, Bartók, Beethoven, Brahms, Busoni, Debussy, Dvorák, Janácek, Liszt, Rachmaninov, Ligeti, Kurtág and Goeyvaerts (these three last composers appreciated very much his interpretations). The cd 'Via Crucis' - a Liszt-portrait (Eufoda) - received a Caeciliaprize in 2002. He played different complete cycles: all Beethoven sonatas, all pianoworks of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg and the complete chamber music with piano of Johannes Brahms.
Nikolai Lugansky
- July 31
Nikolai Lugansky
Nikolai Lugansky is a pianist who combines elegance and grace with powerful virtuosity, a true incarnation of the Russian tradition on the international classical stage. Recognised as a master of Russian and late romantic repertoire, Lugansky is renowned for his interpretations of Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Chopin and Debussy. He has received numerous awards for recordings and artistic merit.
He regularly works with top level conductors such as Yuri Temirkanov, Kent Nagano, Mikhail Pletnev, Gianandrea Noseda and Vladimir Jurowski. Concerto highlights for the 2020/21 season include performances with Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, BBC Symphony Orchestra in London, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra and NHK in Tokyo. Lugansky also tours Europe with Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal.
A regular recitalist the world over, during this season Lugansky appears in Paris, Prague, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Vienna Konzerthaus and Wigmore Hall in London. Lugansky regularly performs at the La Roque-d'Anthéron Festival in France, with the last season marking the 23rd consecutive year of appearance.
In June 2019 Nikolai Lugansky received the Russian Federation National Award in Literature and Art, for his contribution to the development and advancement of Russian and international classical music culture over the past 20 years. Lugansky was awarded the honour of People’s Artist of Russia in April 2013, which is the highest honorary title for outstanding achievement in the arts.
In addition to performing, Lugansky has been a professor at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory since 1998. He is also the Artistic Director of the Tambov Rachmaninov Festival and is a supporter of, and regular performer at, the Rachmaninov Estate and Museum of Ivanovka.
Described by Gramophone as “the most trailblazing and meteoric performer of all” Nikolai Lugansky is a pianist of extraordinary depth and versatility. He appears at some of the world's most distinguished festivals, including the Aspen, Tanglewood Ravinia and Verbier festivals. Chamber music collaborators include Vadim Repin, Alexander Kniazev, Mischa Maisky and Leonidas Kavakos.
Nikolai Lugansky has won several awards for his many recordings. His recital CD featuring Rachmaninov's Piano Sonatas won the Diapason d’Or, whilst his recording of concertos by Grieg and Prokofiev with Kent Nagano and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin was a Gramophone Editor’s Choice. Lugansky has an exclusive contract with harmonia mundi and his Rachmaninov’s 24 Preludes, released in April 2018, met with enthusiastic reviews. He was described as having “an ability to enchant the ear… with a deep feeling for the music” (The Financial Times). His recording of solo piano music by Debussy was released in the 2018 anniversary year and his most recent release ‘César Frank, Préludes, Fugues & Chorals’ (March 2020) won the Diapason d’Or.
Artists:2021
António Rosado
- July 18
António Rosado
Antonio Rosado is a nationally and internationally recognized pianist, result of his talent and taste for diversity, expressed in an extensive piano repertoire that includes works by composers as diverse as Georges Gershwin, Aaron Copland, Isaac Albéniz and Franz Liszt. This versatility allowed him to present for the first time in Portugal, outstanding works as the Sonatas of G. Enescu or the Paraphrases of F. Liszt, being the first Portuguese pianist to perform the complete Preludes and Etudes of Claude Debussy. Also about his recitals can be underlined the interpretation of the complete Mozart and Beethoven Piano Sonatas.
Rosado has performed on stage for the first time at four years of age. His musical studies started with his father and continued at the National Conservatory of Music in Lisbon, where he finished the Piano Superior course, with the highest qualification. At sixteen Rosado left for Paris, and there he came to be a disciple of Aldo Ciccolini at the Music Conservatory and further training took place at Siena and Biella (Italy).
In 1980, took place is debut in concert with the Orchestre National de Toulouse, under the direction of Michel Plasson and since then Rosado has played with numerous international orchestras and notable conductors such as Georg Alexander Albrecht, Moshe Atzmon, Franco Caracciolo, Pierre Dervaux, Arthur Fagen, Leon Fleischer, Silva Pereira, Claudio Scimone, David Stahl, Marc Tardue and Ronald Zollman.
In chamber music he has performed with prestigious musicians such as Aldo Ciccolini, Maurice Gendron, Margarita Zimermann, Gerardo Ribeiro and Paulo Gaio Lima, with whom he played Beethoven's complete works for cello and piano.
Laureate by Maurice Ravel International Academy and the International Academy Perosi, António Rosado was distinguished by the Vianna da Motta International Competition and the International Competition Alfredo Casella in Naples. These awards are the international recognition of his virtuosity and the impetus for a brilliant career, with performing recitals and concerts throughout the world, and participation in various festivals. In the 90s, he was the pianist chosen by TF1 for the recording and transmission of three programs - Spanish and Portuguese music, Liszt and, finally, a recital with music by Beethoven, Prokofiev, Wagner-Liszt.
His first recording was in the 80s, took place in Paris and was dedicated to Enescu. Other albums followed, including the piano works by Vianna da Motta; a commemorative CD of the 150th anniversary of Liszt’s visit to Lisbon; Fantasie by Schumann and Liszt’s Sonata. With violinist Gerardo Ribeiro, Rosado recorded the violin and piano sonatas by Brahms and with the pianist Artur Pizarro, a disc entitled Mozart in Norway. With the NDR Sinfonieorchestra Hamburg, recorded the Concerto No. 2 and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Rachmaninov. In Portugal recorded the two Brahms Concertos with the National Orchestra of Porto, in 2004 all the piano sonatas by Fernando Lopes-Graça and in 2006 the eight suites "In Memoriam Bela Bartok" by the same composer. More recently the Preludes of Armando José Fernandes and Luís de Freitas Branco and, in 2012, Festive Music of Fernando Lopes-Graça. In 2016 was released by Calanda Music, the disc with all Preludes by C. Debussy.
António Rosado holds the prestigious título of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (French Government, 2007).
Teresa da Palma Pereira
- June 27
Teresa da Palma Pereira
After finishing her studies at Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa with the maximum classification under the supervision of the pianist Tania Achot, and a master's degree in piano performance at Catholic University of Porto with Filipe Pinto Ribeiro, she continued her musical studies at Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel with Jan Michiels and in Madrid with Claudio Mehner. She obtained her PHD degree in 2015 with “Summa cum laude” at the Escola das Artes of the Catholic University Porto under the orientation of the pianist Sofia Lourenço and the composer Paulo Ferreira Lopes.
She won several national and international prizes, including “Maria Campina” and “Princess Lalla Meryem”, and performed as soloist with the Brussels Chamber Orchestra, as a prize of Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel Competition for students of all instruments. She has played, since 2006, in countries as France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Brazil and China, as well as in the main Portuguese festivals and concert halls, including Dias da Música, Sintra Festival, Oeiras Festival, Mafra Festival, Centro Cultural de Belém, Auditório Ruy de Carvalho, Centro Cultural de Cascais and Olga Cadaval Cultural Center, as soloist and with the leading Portuguese orchestras and conductors.
She is the author of the book "Schumann ́s Carnaval: work of genius and madness" (based in her PhD dissertation and with a preface of Professor Mário de Vieira de Carvalho) and has recorded four CDs: "Waltz Transfigured" with works by Schubert and Schumann, “Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1" with Orquestra do Norte, "Encounter", with works by Mozart and Schumann and the most recent "Identity", with music by Debussy, Prokofiev and Liszt.
Pianist of great originality, Teresa da Palma Pereira has been dedicated, in the last years, to a set of projects that aim to bring erudite music to new audiences, performing several cycles of commented recitals, as "Communication with music", "Classics outdoors", Classics for All" and " Classics in the Bookstore", at Fundação Portuguesa das Comunicações, Palace of the Aciprestes, in Linda-a-Velha, social quarters and the bookstore “Ler Devagar”, in Alcântara, respectively.
She ́s also the Artistic Director of the Oeiras International Piano Festival since 2018.
Grigory Gruzman
- July 4
Grigory Gruzman
Born in St. Petersburg, he attended the special school of music for highly gifted children of the Academy of Music of St. Petersburg. During school, he has performed more than 300 times in his hometown and in other Russian cities.
He completed his studies at the University of Music in Jerusalem and then with Prof. Vitalij Margulis at the Musikhochschule in Freiburg, where he obtained his concert exam diplom. Grigory Gruzman won a special award at the International Piano Competition in Monza (Italy) and in 1984 was a finalist at the Vercelli International Piano Competition (Italy).
As a soloist, chamber musician (among others, as a member of the Shostakovich Trio) and director of international masterclasses, he performed in 1974 in almost all European countries, in the Far East, Australia, Latin America and in USA more than 1000 times. Everywhere, his recitals were greeted by the public, the press and professional circles with great enthusiasm. "I have been waiting all my life for such an interpretation of Rigoletto's Paraphrase," said Herbert von Karajan once who invited Gruzman to Salzburg. International critics have repeatedly described Shostakovich's trio that he co-founded as one of the best chamber music groups of current days.
Radio and television broadcasters around the world broadcast about 100 of their performances. His adaptation of Modest Mussorgsky's "Pictures of an Exhibition" for the piano trio received special attention worldwide. Likewise, the CD with the Études, Op. 10 and Op. 25 Frédéric Chopin (organophon 90,112) and his CD with works by Johann Sebastian Bach, George Gershwin and Friedrich Gulda (PianoPlay, organophon 90,126) were highly acclaimed.
From 1998 to 2006, Gruzman worked as a lecturer at the Hamburg University of Music and Theater. In 2006, he was appointed professor of Franz Liszt Music University in Weimar. As a pedagogue, Gruzman can contemplate the achievements of many of his students, who have been awarded in several national and international competitions.
From 2005 to 2014, Gruzman was president of the Rachmaninov International Society.
He was artistic director and chairman of the jury of three international Rachmaninov competitions for children and teenagers of different age groups. Gruzman is often the jury of several international competitions abroad.
Since 2006, he is permanent director and chairman of the jury of the Liszt International Young Pianist Competition (every three years in Weimar).
He is also a founding member of the Trialogue Musical ensemble.
In 2013, Gruzman was unanimously elected director of the Institute of Keyboard Instruments at the Weimar Academy of Music.
Jan Michiels
- July 11
Jan Michiels
Jan Michiels studied with Abel Matthys at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. From 1988 to 1993 he studied at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin under the direction of Hans Leygraf - he was awarded an exceptional distinction for his interpretations of Bartók's Second concerto for piano and Ligeti's Etudes. He was Tenuto-laureate in 1988 ; in 1989 he won the international E.Durlet competition. In 1991 he was laureate of the international Queen Elizabeth Competition. In 1992 he was awarded the JeM/ Cera prize for musicians and in 1996 he was signed up as festival star of the Flanders Festival. He is also laureate of the 'Gouden Vleugels/KBC Muziekprijs' 2006.
Jan Michiels is currently active as piano professor in the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel, where he also led the class of contemporary music for eight years. He conducted masterclasses in London, Murcia, Hamburg, Oslo, Montepulciano, Szombathely (Bartokfestival). He is fellow in the 'Platform' (VUB-KCB/The Brussels Model) and prepares a doctorate in the arts with the 'New Prometheus' of Luigi Nono as a guide. He regularly performs as a soloist or with chamber music ensembles (a.o. the Piano Quartet "Tetra Lyre" and a piano duo with Inge Spinette) in several musical centres in Europe and Asia, with conductors such as Angus, Asbury, Baudo, Boreycko, Edwards, Eötvös, Märkl, Meylemans, Nézet-Séguin, Ono, Pfaff, Rahbari, Rundel, Soustrot, Stern, Tabachnik, Tamayo, Zagrosek, Zender - but also with dance-productions of Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker, Vincent Dunoyer and Sen Hea Ha. His repertoire reaches from Bach to today.
Apart from his many radio recordings, he also recorded cd's with works from a.o. Bach, Bartók, Beethoven, Brahms, Busoni, Debussy, Dvorák, Janácek, Liszt, Rachmaninov, Ligeti, Kurtág and Goeyvaerts (these three last composers appreciated very much his interpretations). The cd 'Via Crucis' - a Liszt-portrait (Eufoda) - received a Caeciliaprize in 2002. He played different complete cycles: all Beethoven sonatas, all pianoworks of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg and the complete chamber music with piano of Johannes Brahms.
Suzana Bartal
- July 25
Suzana Bartal
Consistently praised for her brilliant technique, tonal beauty, and superb musicianship, Canadian pianist Angela Cheng is one of her country’s national treasures. In addition to regular guest appearances with virtually every orchestra in Canada, she has performed with the symphonies of Alabama, Annapolis, Colorado, Flint, Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Saint Louis, San Diego, Syracuse, and Utah, as well as the philharmonic orchestras of Buffalo, Louisiana, London, Minas Gerais/Brazil, and Israel.
In the 2019/2020 season, Ms. Cheng was scheduled to serve as an Artistic Partner of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, performing three concertos throughout the 19/20 season: de Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain, Clara Schumann’s concerto in celebration of 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth, and Mozart’s 23rd piano concerto. Other highlights include return engagements with the symphonies of Vancouver, Victoria, and Symphony Nova Scotia, where she was also to perform the Clara Schumann concerto, as well as the Vancouver Recital Society. In the U.S., Ms. Cheng was to perform with the symphonies of Richmond, Canton, Ft. Worth, and Oklahoma City, as well as the IRIS Chamber Orchestra, for the Beethoven triple concerto with the Zukerman Trio. The Trio was also scheduled for extensive touring, including two European tours. In 20/21 she will be a featured guest artist with Portugal's Oeiras International Piano Festival, appear with the Rhode Island Philharmonic, and tour Europe and Asia, as well as appear at Ravinia, the Aspen Music Festival, Detroit Chamber Music and many others venues in the U.S. and abroad, as part of the Zukerman Trio.
Angela Cheng’s collaborations with Pinchas Zukerman began in 2009, when, at his invitation, she toured both Europe and China as a member of the Zukerman Chamber Players, and as Mr. Zukerman’s collaborative pianist. She joined them again in the spring of 2010 for a U.S. tour, which included concerts at Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and the 92nd Street Y in New York. Subsequent seasons have seen multiple tours of Europe and South America, including performances at the Salzburg Festival, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and at the Schleswig-Holstein and Ravinia festivals. With Mr. Zukerman and cellist Amanda Forsyth, as a member of the Zukerman Trio, Ms. Cheng made her debuts at the Verbier, Edinburgh, Miyazaki, St. Petersburg/Stars of the White Nights, and Enescu/Romania Festivals.
An avid recitalist, Ms. Cheng appears regularly on recital series throughout the United States and Canada and has collaborated with numerous chamber ensembles including the Takács, Colorado, and Vogler quartets. Festival appearances have included Banff, Bravo! Vail, Chautauqua, Colorado, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla’s SummerFest, Ravinia, Vancouver, the Festival International de Lanaudière in Quebec, MasterWorks Festival, Toronto Summer Music Festival, and the Cartegena International Music Festival in Colombia.
Angela Cheng's debut recording of two Mozart concerti with Mario Bernardi and the CBC Vancouver Orchestra received glowing reviews. Other CDs include Clara Schumann's Concerto in A Minor with JoAnn Falletta and the Women's Philharmonic for Koch International; for CBC Records, four Spanish concerti with Hans Graf and the Calgary Philharmonic; both Shostakovich concerti with Mario Bernardi and the CBC Radio Orchestra; and a solo disc of selected works of Clara and Robert Schumann. Most recently, an all-Chopin recital CD was released by Universal Music Canada.
Ms. Cheng was Gold Medalist of the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Masters Competition, as well as the first Canadian to win the prestigious Montreal International Piano Competition. Other awards include the Canada Council’s coveted Career Development Grant and the Medal of Excellence for outstanding interpretations of Mozart from the Mozarteum in Salzburg.
Nikolai Lugansky
- August 1
Nikolai Lugansky
Nikolai Lugansky is a pianist who combines elegance and grace with powerful virtuosity, a true incarnation of the Russian tradition on the international classical stage. Recognised as a master of Russian and late romantic repertoire, Lugansky is renowned for his interpretations of Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Chopin and Debussy. He has received numerous awards for recordings and artistic merit.
He regularly works with top level conductors such as Yuri Temirkanov, Kent Nagano, Mikhail Pletnev, Gianandrea Noseda and Vladimir Jurowski. Concerto highlights for the 2020/21 season include performances with Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, BBC Symphony Orchestra in London, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra and NHK in Tokyo. Lugansky also tours Europe with Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal.
A regular recitalist the world over, during this season Lugansky appears in Paris, Prague, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Vienna Konzerthaus and Wigmore Hall in London. Lugansky regularly performs at the La Roque-d'Anthéron Festival in France, with the last season marking the 23rd consecutive year of appearance.
In June 2019 Nikolai Lugansky received the Russian Federation National Award in Literature and Art, for his contribution to the development and advancement of Russian and international classical music culture over the past 20 years. Lugansky was awarded the honour of People’s Artist of Russia in April 2013, which is the highest honorary title for outstanding achievement in the arts.
In addition to performing, Lugansky has been a professor at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory since 1998. He is also the Artistic Director of the Tambov Rachmaninov Festival and is a supporter of, and regular performer at, the Rachmaninov Estate and Museum of Ivanovka.
Described by Gramophone as “the most trailblazing and meteoric performer of all” Nikolai Lugansky is a pianist of extraordinary depth and versatility. He appears at some of the world's most distinguished festivals, including the Aspen, Tanglewood Ravinia and Verbier festivals. Chamber music collaborators include Vadim Repin, Alexander Kniazev, Mischa Maisky and Leonidas Kavakos.
Nikolai Lugansky has won several awards for his many recordings. His recital CD featuring Rachmaninov's Piano Sonatas won the Diapason d’Or, whilst his recording of concertos by Grieg and Prokofiev with Kent Nagano and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin was a Gramophone Editor’s Choice. Lugansky has an exclusive contract with harmonia mundi and his Rachmaninov’s 24 Preludes, released in April 2018, met with enthusiastic reviews. He was described as having “an ability to enchant the ear… with a deep feeling for the music” (The Financial Times). His recording of solo piano music by Debussy was released in the 2018 anniversary year and his most recent release ‘César Frank, Préludes, Fugues & Chorals’ (March 2020) won the Diapason d’Or.