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Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason is in great demand internationally as a soloist and chamber musician. She offers eclectic and interesting repertoire, with her recital programmes encompassing music from Haydn and Mozart, via Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, Chopin and Brahms, to Gershwin and beyond. In concerto, she is equally at home in Felix Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, whose piano concerto featured on Isata’s chart-topping debut recording, as in Prokofiev and Dohnányi.
In 2022/23 Isata steps into her role as Artist in Residence with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, performing three concerti across the season at London’s Cadogan Hall. She returns to Dortmund’s Konzerthaus as one of their Junge Wilde artists and makes multiple visits to both the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. Other highlights of the season include recital performances at the Barbican, Queen Elizabeth, and Wigmore halls in London, the Philharmonie Berlin, National Concert Hall Dublin, Perth Concert Hall, Prinzregententheater Munich, and the Sala São Paulo. As concerto soloist, Isata appears with the Orchestra of Opera North, New World Symphony Miami, City of Birmingham Symphony, Duisburg Philharmonic, Barcelona Symphony, Geneva Chamber Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, and Orchestra of Norwegian Opera. She returns to the Baltimore Symphony and recently made her long-awaited debut with the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl.
Isata is a Decca Classics recording artist. Her 2019 album, “Romance – the Piano Music of Clara Schumann”, entered the UK classical charts at No. 1, Gramophone magazine extolling the recording as “one of the most charming and engaging debuts”. This was followed in 2021 by “Summertime”, an album of 20th-century American repertoire featuring Samuel Barber’s Piano Sonata and a world premiere recording of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Impromptu in B minor. In November 2021, along with her cellist brother, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Isata released her first duo album entitled “Muse”, beautifully demonstrating the siblings’ musicality and refined skill borne from years of playing and performing together.
She was an ECHO Rising Star in 21/22, performing in many of Europe’s finest halls and is also the recipient of the coveted Leonard Bernstein Award and an Opus Klassik award for best young artist.
Ji Liu has positioned himself as one of the brightest stars in classical music today. Alongside topping the classical charts on numerous occasions, he also delights audiences around the world, from the Royal Albert Hall in London to Carnegie Hall in New York. Back in 2010, Ji Liu’s recording of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Royal Academy of Music Symphonic Brass and James Watson on the Academy’s own label had foreseen the pianist’s future thriving career as a recording artist. In 2014, his debut solo album ‘Piano Reflections’ stormed the UK Classical Charts, reaching number one and making him the UK’s biggest-selling classical breakthrough artist of the year. This album was also nominated as the ‘Best Classical Album’ in the prestigious Chinese Music Awards in 2015. Following this success, Ji Liu went on to release two more acclaimed albums, ‘Piano Encores’ and ‘Pure Chopin’. In 2016, ‘Pure Chopin’ was nominated as one of 20 best classical albums of the year by Classic FM radio. In early 2018, Ji Liu was nominated as ‘Best Classical Artist of the Year’ at the inaugural Global Awards.
With his extraordinary pianistic talents, Fazil Say has been touching audiences and critics alike for more than twenty-five years, in a way that has become rare in the increasingly materialistic and elaborately organised classical music world. Concerts with this artist are something different. They are more direct, more open, more exciting; in short, they go straight to the heart. Which is exactly what the composer Aribert Reimann thought in 1986 when, during a visit to Ankara, he had the opportunity, more or less by chance, to appreciate the playing of the sixteen-year-old pianist. He immediately asked the American pianist David Levine, who was accompanying him on the trip, to come to the city’s conservatory, using the now much-quoted words: ‘You absolutely must hear him, this boy plays like a devil.’
Fazıl Say had his first piano lessons from Mithat Fenmen, who had himself studied with Alfred Cortot in Paris. Perhaps sensing just how talented his pupil was, Fenmen asked the boy to improvise every day on themes to do with his daily life before going on to complete his essential piano exercises and studies. This contact with free creative processes and forms are seen as the source of the immense improvisatory talent and the aesthetic outlook that make Fazıl Say the pianist and composer he is today. He has been commissioned to write music for, among others, the Salzburger Festspiele, the WDR and the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Festspiele Mecklenburg- Vorpommern, the Konzerthaus Wien, the Dresdner Philharmonie, the Louis Vuitton Foundation, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the BBC. His oeuvre includes four symphonies, two oratorios, various solo concertos and numerous works for piano and chamber music.
From 1987 onwards, Fazıl Say fine-tuned his skills as a classical pianist with David Levine, first at the Musikhochschule “Robert Schumann” in Düsseldorf and later in Berlin. In addition, he regularly attended master classes with Menahem Pressler. His outstanding technique very quickly enabled him to master the so-called warhorses of the repertoire with masterful ease. It is precisely this blend of refinement (in Bach, Haydn and Mozart) and virtuoso brilliance in the works of Liszt, Mussorgsky and Beethoven that gained him victory at the Young Concert Artists international competition in New York in 1994. Since then he has played with all of the renowned American and European orchestras and numerous leading conductors, building up a multifaceted repertoire ranging from Bach, through the Viennese Classics (Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven) and the Romantics, right up to contemporary music, including his own piano compositions.
Guest appearances have taken Fazıl Say to countless countries on all five continents; the French newspaper “Le Figaro” called him ‘a genius’. He also performs chamber music regularly: for many years he was part of a fantastic duo with the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. Other notable collaborators include Maxim Vengerov, the Minetti Quartet, Nicolas Altstaedt and Marianne Crebassa.
From 2005 to 2010, he was artist in residence at the Konzerthaus Dortmund; during the 2010/11 season he held the same position at the Konzerthaus Berlin. Fazıl Say was also a focal point of the programme of the Schleswig- Holstein Musik Festival in the summer of 2011. There have been further residencies and Fazıl Say festivals in Paris, Tokyo, Meran, Hamburg, and Istanbul. During the 2012/13 season Fazıl Say was the artist in residence at the hr- Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt and at the Rheingau Musik Festival 2013, where he was honoured with the Rheingau Musik Preis. In April 2015 Fazıl Say gave a successful concert with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, New York, followed by a tour with concerts throughout Europe. In 2014 he was artist in residence at the Bodenseefestival, where he played 14 concerts. During their 2015/2016 season the Alte Oper Frankfurt and the Zürcher Kammerorchester invited him to be their Artist in Residence, he spent three seasons as Artist in Residence at the Festival der Nationen in Bad Wörishofen and was Composer in Residence at the Dresdner Philharmonie in 2018/19.
In December 2016, Fazıl Say was awarded the International Beethoven Prize for Human Rights, Peace, Freedom, Poverty Reduction and Inclusion, in Bonn. In the autumn of 2017, he was awarded the Music Prize of the city of Duisburg.
His recordings of works by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Gershwin and Stravinsky with Teldec Classics as well as Mussorgsky, Beethoven and his own works with the label naïve have been highly praised by critics and won several prizes, including three ECHO Klassik Awards. In 2014, his recording of Beethoven’s piano concerto No. 3 (with hr- Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt / Gianandrea Noseda) and Beethoven’s sonatas op. 111 and op. 27/2 Moonlight was released, as well as the CD ‘Say plays Say’, featuring his compositions for piano. Since 2016 Fazıl Say is an exclusive Warner Classics artist. In the autumn of 2016, his recording of all of Mozart sonatas was released on that label, for which, in 2017, Fazıl Say received his fourth ECHO Klassik award. Together with Nicolas Altstaedt, he recorded the album “4 Cities” (2017). In autumn 2017 Warner Classics released the Nocturnes Frédéric Chopins and the album “Secrets” with French songs, which he recorded together with Marianne Crebassa and which won the Gramophone Classical Music Award in 2018. His 2018 album is dedicated to Debussy and Satie, whilst with his most recent recording “Troy Sonata – Fazıl Say Plays Say” he presents only his own works.
The Observer called him “the definition of virtuosity”: Japan’s Nobuyuki Tsujii, who has been blind since birth, has won admiration wherever he goes since winning the Gold Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2009. He has performed with the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Filarmonica della Scala and the Sinfonieorchester Basel. His recitals regularly take him to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Wigmore and Royal Albert Halls, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Musikverein. His brilliant debuts in recent seasons augur well for future collaborations, such as the one with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, which will tour under the direction of Klaus Mäkelä in spring 2021.
One of the most lyrical and intimate voices of contemporary jazz piano, and described by The New York Times as ‘the most influential jazz pianist of the last 20 years’, GRAMMY Award-winning Brad Mehldau combines the essence of jazz exploration with classical romanticism and pop allure. From critical acclaim as a bandleader, to major collaborations with artists such as jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, soprano Renee Fleming and saxophonist Joshua Redman, Mehldau continues to garner admiration from jazz purists and music enthusiasts alike. His forays into melding musical idioms, in both trio settings (with Larry Grenadier on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums) and solo, have seen brilliant re-workings of songs from writers including The Beatles, Cole Porter, Radiohead, Paul Simon, Gershwin and Nick Drake; alongside a significant catalogue of original compositions.
Winner of the First Prize in the 2010 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels at the ge of 23, Denis Kozhukhin has established himself as one of the greatest pianists of his generation.
Kozhukhin’s performances have been praised by critics as “spellbinding”, “imperious” and “mesmerizing”. Technically flawless, Kozhukhin combines wisely the brilliance and power of his playing with a masterful sense of form, maturity, and a very unique approach.
Kozhukhin frequently appears with many of the leading international orchestras, such as Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony, Staatskapelle Berlin, Israel Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Vienna Symphony, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. In 2018 he debuted at the BBC Proms, performing Shostakovich Piano Concerto No.2 with the Aurora Orchestra.
The 20/21 brings debuts with Los Angeles Philharmonic, Malmo Symphony, Antwerp Symphony, ADDA Orchestra, Bilbao Symphony, Szcezcin Philharmonic, returns to the Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony, Belgium National Symphony, Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Iceland Symphony, Gavle Symphony, Colorado Symphony and NCPA Orchestra. Denis will tour in Europe and USA with Janine Jansen and appear in recital at the Boulez Saal, Elbphilharmonie, Wiener Konzerthaus, Casa da Musica, Harpa, and will be guest artist at the Prague Spring Festival, Malta International Festival, Klavier Ruhr Festival, Armenia Festival and Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival.
His most recent recording featuring C. Franck’s Symphonic Variations with the Luxembourg Philharmonic under Gustavo Gimeno was released by Pentatone in June 2020, obtaining rave reviews. His last solo album, including Mendelssohn’s Songs without words and Grieg’s Lyric Pieces, was picked by Gramophone as “album of the month” as well as nominated to the 2020 Opus Klassik Awards in the categories of Solo recording and Instrumentalist of the year.
An avid chamber musician, Kozhukhin is frequently invited to the most renowned festivals and collaborates with such artists as Janine Jansen, Jörg Widmann, Julian Rachlin, Vadim Repin, Leonidas Kavakos, Michael Barenboim, Vilde Frang, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, the Jerusalem Quartet, the Pavel Haas Quartet, Elena Bashkirova, Radovan Vlatkovic, Emmanuel Pahud, Alisa Weilerstein, Nicolas Alstaedt, Julian Steckel, and Pablo Ferrández, among others.
Born in Nizhni Novgorod, Russia, in 1986 into a family of musicians, Denis Kozhukhin began his piano studies at the age of five with his mother. As a boy, he attended the Balakirev School of Music where he studied under Natalia Fish. From 2000 to 2007, Kozhukhin studied at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid with Dimitri Bashkirov and Claudio Martinez-Mehner. Kozhukhin completed his studies at the Piano Academy at Lake Como where he received advice from Fou Ts’ong, Stanislav Yudenitch, Peter Frankl, Boris Berman, Charles Rosen and Andreas Staier, and with Kirill Gerstein in Stuttgart. In recent years he has been mentored by maestro Daniel Barenboim.
Jonathan Papp (Artistic Director, GSA) is greatly in demand as a coach and accompanist, having shared recitals with Sir Thomas Allen, Cheryl Barker, Ian Bostridge, Sophie Daneman, Susan Gritton, Katarina Karneus, Christopher Maltman, Amanda Roocroft, Sergei Leiferkus, Marina Poplavskya, Moray Welsh and Catherine Wyn-Rogers, amongst others. Venues have ranged from London’s Wigmore Hall to the Sydney Opera House. He has made radio and television broadcasts here and abroad with such artists as Dame Kiri and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. He has worked as both coach and recital partner with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa for over seventeen years. He has given Masterclasses at the Royal Opera House and abroad, including Japan and New Zealand. He has been on the staff of the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme, for the Royal Opera House, the Walton Foundation in Ischia and for the Tosti Institute in Ortona. In 2004 he co-founded the Georg Solti Accademia in Italy, of which he is Artistic Director, working alongside an expert hand-picked faculty and inviting an impressive range of artists to give masterclasses, including Frederica von Stade, José Carreras, Richard Bonynge and Angela Gheorghiu. He trained at the RAM in London, where he won prizes for piano accompaniment, solo playing and chamber music, and was appointed the Hodgson Fellow for piano and an Associate of the Royal Academy. He undertook further postgraduate studies with Bruno Canino in Milan and Geoffrey Parsons in London. Jonathan Papp was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in 2014. Papp is a member of the Vocal Faculty and the Opera School at the RAM.
Semion Skigin was born in Leningrad and studied at its State Conservatory. In 1972, he appeared as a soloist with the Leningrad Philharmonic and three years later won first prize at the International Competition for Piano Accompanists in Rio de Janeiro.
Semion Skigin’s activity as a teacher led to his appointment as guest professor from 1978 to 1981 at the Carl Maria von Weber Musikhochschule in Dresden. Since 1990 he has been Professor of Song Accompaniment at the Musikhochschule “Hanns Eisler” in Berlin. In addition, he regularly gives master classes at leading conservatories in Germany, Holland, and the U.S.A, and Russia. He is a jury member of numerous international competitions and festivals, the Artistic Director of the music festival at Theaterkahn in Dresden, as well as Vice President and Artistic Director of the Piano Salon in Berlin.
Semion Skigin is one of the most sought-after song accompanists and appears in all the great concert halls of the world, accompanying world-class singers, such as Ekaterina Semenchuk, Evelina Dobračeva, Olaf Bär, Cheryl Studer, Robert Holl, Olga Borodina, and Sergei Leiferkus.
Salvatore Accardo made his debut in recital at the age of 13 playing Paganini’s Capricci.Two years later he won the Geneva Competition and in 1958 the Paganini Competition in Genoa.
His repertoire ranges from pre-Bach to post-Berg; composers like Sciarrino, Donatoni, Piston, Piazzolla, Colasanti and Xenakis wrote for him.
In addition to playing with the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, Accardo performs in recital and particularly loves chamber music.
In 1992 he founded the Accardo Quartet and in 1986 the Walter Stauffer Academy together with Giuranna, Filippini and Petracchi in Cremona, where they regularly give master classes. In 1971 he founded the Settimane Musicali Internazionali in Naples, where rehearsals were open to the audience, and the Cremona String Festival.
Accardo has also dedicated part of his activities to conducting important European and American Orchestras. He recorded as conductor with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London. Since 1987 he conducts also opera (Rossini Festival with Ponnelle, Rome Opera House, Monte Carlo Opera, Lille and Naples Opera House).
In 1992 for the 200th anniversary of Rossini’s birth, he conducted in Pesaro Festival and in Rome the first modern edition of the Messa di Gloria (recorded live by Warner Fonit), that did again in 1995 in Vienna with the Wiener Symphoniker.
He recorded for DGG Paganini Capricci and Concertos for violin with Charles Dutoit , for Philips several recordings (Bach Sonatas and Partitas, Max Bruch works for violin and orchestra with Kurt Masur, Čajkovskij, Dvořák and Sibelius Concerts with Colin Davis, Mendelssohn Concert with Charles Dutoit, Brahms and Beethoven Concerts with Kurt Masur). He also recorded for ASV, Dynamic, EMI, Sony Classical, Collins Classic and Foné. Among these recordings are: Beethoven Concerto in D major and 2 Romances with Accademia della Scala Orchestra conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini for Sony Classical; Brahms Sonatas for violin and piano, Schubert Quartets, Paganini Capricci and Homage to Heifetz and Homage to Kreisler for FONÉ playing the legendary violins from the Cremona collection; for Dynamic Accardo played Paganini’s violin. Recently Foné re-masterised the Mozart Complete works for violin in 13 CDs in high quality technology.
Accardo has been awarded in Italy with Abbiati Prize by the Italian Musical Critics in recognition of the exceptional standard of his playing and interpretation and with the Italian highest honour “Cavaliere di Gran Croce”. In 1996 the Beijing Conservatoire named him “most honourable Professor”, in 1999 he was named”Commandeur dans l’ordre du mérit culturel” in Monaco and in 2002 he received “A Life for the Music” Award, and this year he was awarded by the Kennedy Center of New York with the Gold Medal in the Arts.
In 1996 Accardo recreated the Orchestra da Camera Italiana (OCI), whose members are the best pupils of Cremona “Walter Stauffer Academy” and recorded two CDs with them: The virtuoso violin in Italy and Masterpieces for violin and strings for Warner Fonit Cetra. In 1999 Accardo and OCI recorded the complete Paganini Concerti for violin and orchestra for EMI Classics, the “Concerto per la Costituzione” and in 2003 the complete Astor Piazzolla works for violin in 3 SACDs for Foné.
Accardo and OCI do every year many concerts together especially in Italy, where they play every season for the most important concert Societies and Theaters.
Starting in 2007 he realized until now for Foné the second recording of J. S. Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, the third recording of Paganini’s 24 Capricci (Urtext) and the third recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with OCI (Urtext).
Salvatore Accardo plays a violin Guarneri del Gesù “Reade”- 1734.
Roman Borisov, the youngest participant, won First Prize at the Kissinger KlavierOlymp in October 2022. The jury praised his “highly musical, intuitive and structure-conscious interpretations” of works by Liebermann, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Brahms, and Prokofiev, along with his impressive stage presence. His early musical education began when a nursery schoolteacher introduced him to legendary piano teacher Mary Lebenzon at the Novosibirsk Conservatory at age four, a mentorship that lasted until 2020. Borisov drew early attention, winning a Spivakov Foundation scholarship and the Krainev Youth Competition in 2019.
Following numerous performances in the 2019/2020 season, including in Hamburg, Berlin, and the Piano Festival Ruhr, Borisov moved to Berlin after finishing secondary school. In January 2022, he began studying at the Hanns Eisler Conservatory under Prof. Eldar Nebolsin. His previous engagements include performances with orchestras such as the Orchestre de l’Opéra national de Lorraine, the Württemberg Philharmonic Orchestra, and the ORF Symphony Orchestra. Borisov has performed solo at venues like the Philharmonie Essen, Bordeaux, Zürich, and Bad Kissingen.
Following numerous performances in the 2019/2020 season, including in Hamburg, Berlin, and the Piano Festival Ruhr, Borisov moved to Berlin after finishing secondary school. In January 2022, he began studying at the Hanns Eisler Conservatory under Prof. Eldar Nebolsin. His previous engagements include performances with orchestras such as the Orchestre de l’Opéra national de Lorraine, the Württemberg Philharmonic Orchestra, and the ORF Symphony Orchestra. Borisov has performed solo at venues like the Philharmonie Essen, Bordeaux, Zürich, and Bad Kissingen.
His performance of Rachmaninoff at the Piano Festival Ruhr in 2021 was featured in its annual CD release. In September 2022, Borisov recorded Mozart Piano Concertos K. 413 and K. 415 with the ORF Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Howard Griffith, for a full Mozart concerto recording series to be released in June 2023 by Alpha.
The 2023/24 season includes Borisov’s debuts at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam with the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen and at the Konzerthaus Wien, as well as concerts with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester under Kent Nagano and other esteemed orchestras. He will also perform solo recitals at the Ruhr Piano Festival, the Bremen Music Festival, and the Brucknerhaus Linz. His repertoire includes works by Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Brahms, Chopin, and Beethoven.