First Prize Winner of the 2001 Cleveland International Piano Competition, Finalist at the Twelfth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2005, Laureate of the 2003 Honens International Piano Competition (Calgary, Canada) and the 2006 Axa Dublin International Piano Competition, Italian pianist Roberto Plano has performed all over the world. Important venues in North America include Alice Tully Hall in New York City’s Lincoln Center, where he performed the American premiere of Luis de Pablo’s Retratos y Transcripciones; Severance Hall in Cleveland, National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and others. He regularly performs in Europe – notably at Sala Verdi in Milan, Salle Cortot in Paris, Wigmore Hall and St. John Smith Square in London, National Concert Hall in Dublin, and at the Herculessaal and Gasteig in Munich. He has been a featured recitalist at internationally acclaimed Festivals such as the Chopin Festival in Duszniki, Poland; the Festival at Sandpoint, the Portland Piano International Festival, Savannah Music Festival, the Wassermann Piano Festival (UT) and the Newport Music Festival in the USA.
He has appeared with orchestras in Italy (Milan Symphony Orchestra “Verdi”, Rome Symphony), Germany (Rheinland-Pfalz), Spain (Valencia Symphony), Czech Republic (Marienbad Symphony), Slovakia (Kosice State Symphony), Romania (Oradea, Sibiu, Targu Mures Symphonies), Switzerland (Festival Strings, Lucerne), the UK (Young Symphony Orchestra), Japan (Sendai Symphony), USA symphony orchestras (Houston, Fort Worth, Spokane, Akron, Illinois S.O., and others), under conductors such as James Conlon, Pinchas Zuckerman, Jahja Ling, Marcelo Lehninger, Robert Franz, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Jahja Ling, Enrique Garcia Assensio, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Donato Renzetti, Ari Raisilianen, Kerry Stratton and Gary Sheldon. In Canada he has been soloist with Calgary Philharmonic under the direction of Sir Neville Marriner.
As a teacher, he has given public master classes in prestigious University such as Indiana University, Houston University, Kent State University, Augusta State University, University of Mississippi, Utah State University, University of Dayton, the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), Boston Conservatory, the Cleveland Institute of Music, at the Alberta Conservatory (Edmonton, Canada), at the Conservatory of San Juan (Puerto Rico), and in all the major cities of Schlewsig-Holstein, Germany, as well as in Paris at the Ecole Normale Cortot, in Taiwan, and throughout North America. During the summer he also regularly presides at the Music International Masterclasses in Portogruaro, Italy.
Enquiry: info@richmondhillmusicfestival.org
Sofya Gulyak is associate professor of music in piano at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. She was previously a piano professor at the Royal College of Music in London.
In 2009, Gulyak was awarded first prize and the Princess Mary Gold Medal at the 16th Leeds International Piano Competition, the first woman to achieve this distinction. Since then, she has appeared internationally to great critical and public acclaim. Other prestigious prizes she has won include first prizes at the Kapell, Maj Lind,Tivoli,Isangyun, and San Marino international piano competitions, second prize(first not awarded)at Busoni, and third prize at the Long–Thibaud–Crespin Competition.
Gulyak has performed insuch venues as La Scala Theatre in Milan, Herculessaal in Munich,Salle Cortot,Salle Gaveau and Salle Pleyel in Paris, Wigmore Hall in London, MoscowConservatory, Konzerthaus in Berlin, Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Hong Kong City Hall, Shanghai Grand Theatre, and Tokyo OperaCity Hall.
She has played with such orchestras as the London Philharmonic, Royal LiverpoolPhilharmonic, Hallé, BBC Scottish and Finnish Radio symphony orchestras, Helsinki Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Philharmonic,Budapest Philharmonic,Orchestre National de France, and Shanghai Philharmonic.
Conductors with whom Gulyak has collaborated include Mark Elder, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sakari Oramo, Donald Runnicles, Vasily Petrenko,Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Theodor Guschlbauer, Lahav Shani, Karl-Heinz Steffens, and Alan Burybaev, among others.
Gulyak’s 2013 recording of Russian piano music on Champs Hi
ll Records received a five-star review in Diapason magazine and glowing reviews in Gramophone and The Guardian,while her 2015 all-Brahms CD (on Piano Classics) led the American Record Guide to draw comparisons withthe young Martha Argerich and Fanfare magazine to hail her as “a natural Brahmsian, whatever his moods.”
Her latest CD (on Champs Hill Records) of piano chaconnes was welcomed by The Arts Desk as “a fascinating collection, superbly realised andbeautifully recorded.”
Born in Kazan, Russia, Gulyak studied at the Kazan State Conservatoireunder Elfiya Burnasheva before continuing her studies with Boris Petrushansky at Imola Piano Academy in Italy and Vanessa Latarche at the Royal College of Music in London.