Jury

Paolo Baglieri
Artistic Director and Chairman of the Jury

Paolo Baglieri is one of the most prominent personalities of his generation. Acclaimed as “a pianist that perfectly mixes his personal view with the composer’s ideas”, he is the winner of many international piano competitions.

He has performed in Italy, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Austria, Palestine, Israel and Chile for over 300 concerts in some of the most important concert halls: Taormina, Catania, Lucca, Rome, Turin, Pistoia, Bologna, Verona, Castle of Galeazza, Salzburg, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Paris, Brussels, Castle d’Ursel, Haifa, Jerusalem, Madrid, Santiago of Chile among others.

He has been the piano professor at the Conservatory of Music of Jerusalem and he taught in Pavia and Siena Conservatories in Italy. Invited as jury member of international piano competitions, as Treviso, Paderewski International Piano Competition, Madrid, Yerevan, Clavicologne, Malta International Piano Competition, German Piano Open Competition of Berlin, Eurasian Music Games of Astana, International Music Competition Moscow Piano Open, among others.

Currently he holds the position as President and Artistic Director of the prestigious italian academy Talent Music Master Courses of Brescia. He is Artistic Director of Talent Music Summer Courses&Festival. He is Artistic Director and Chairman of the Jury of the “Brescia Classica International Piano Competition”.

Born in Italy and graduated at Catania Conservatory, he took his following degrees at “Codarts – University of Arts” of Rotterdam and at Ecole d’Enseignement Superieur de Musique, de Danse et d’Art Dramatique “Schola Cantorum” of Paris. Major influences in his musical development were studies with Pavel Gililov, Gabriel Kwok, Benedetto Lupo, Boris Petrushansky, and Sergio Perticaroli.

www.paolobaglieri.com

Armen Babakhanian

A prize-winner at several of the world’s most prestigious international piano competitions including the Leeds, Van Cliburn, Guardian Dublin, William Kappell, Gina Bachauer, and World Piano Competition, Armen Babakhanian has captured the imagination of audiences and critics alike through the intensity and honesty of his performances.

Armen has given recitals in the USA, Canada, Japan, UK, Germany, Austria, Italy, France and Spain. He has appeared as soloist with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Irish National Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra (USA), Dallas Symphony, Saint Petersburg Philharmonic under Yuri Temirkanov, Moscow Philharmonic under Valery Gergiev, and the Israel Philharmonic. Festival appearances include the Aspen, Interlochen, Santander and Baalbec music festivals.

Babakhanian’s performance of the Shostakovich Piano Quintet with the Takács Quartet at the Santander Festival in Spain was named the best chamber music performance of the festival. He has recorded for the ASV and Real Sound labels and his performances have been broadcasted on BBC, PBS (USA), ORF (Austria) and RAI (Italy) television networks. His recording of the Tchaikovsky piano sonatas received rave reviews in the European press.

In addition to his performing career, Armen has served as jury member for several international piano competitions, including the Gina Bachauer, Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff piano competitions. In 1999 he founded and served as Artistic Director for the Armenian Legacy International Piano Competition in Yerevan, Armenia. He has taught numerous master-classes in Russia, UK, Spain, Japan and the USA. He is currently an Artist-in-residence at the Komitas State Conservatory in Yerevan, where he also received his musical education.

During the 2001/2002 season, Armen Babakhanian appeared in concerts in 17 cities in Japan, USA, Canada, Australia and Finland. He also took part in a concert tour of France which included a recital in Lyon’s famed Salle Molière.

Dorian Leljak

Dr. Dorian Leljak is President of the World Piano Teachers Association (WPTA), the World Piano Conference (WPC), the WPTA International Piano Competition (WPTA IPC), Honorary President of the European Piano Teachers Association (EPTA Voyvodina), Artistic Director of the International Isidor Bajic Piano Competition, Executive Director of the Panopticum Musicum/Musica Ricercata Music Schools and Southeast Europe Representative for the ABRSM (London).

Previously taught at the Yale School of Music, Dr. Leljak is Professor of Piano at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad and frequently examines at the Royal College of Music (London). He has studied with Arbo Valdma and Boris Berman (DMA, Yale University).

Dr. Leljak has won several international piano competitions (Rachmaninov Competition, Novi Sad Piano Competition) and has been awarded numerous prizes, including a University of Novi Sad Merit Award, Yale University Mary Clapp Howell, Irving Gilmore and Parisot Prizes. He enjoys successful career worldwide as a recital pianist, soloist with orchestras and as a chamber musician, establishing collaborations with cellist Istvan Varga and Pianist Ninoslav Zivkovic. In 2002 he made his debuts in Carnegie Hall and Boston Philharmonia Hall.

Dorian Leljak frequently adjudicates international piano competitions such as Cleveland International Piano Competition, Top of the World Piano Competition Tromsø, Parnassos Monterey, Young Musicians Enschede, Scriabin Grosseto, Fausto Zadra, Neue Sterne Wernigerode, Carl Filtsch Sibiu, Spanish Composers Las Rozas, Euregio Geilenkirchen, Baltic Gdansk, Rotary Xàbia, Monopoli Barletta and Chopin Rome.

Hannes Sonntag

Born into an artist’s family, Hannes Sonntag has been surrounded by classical music since his early life. Already at the age of 14 years, he gave his debut performance with Mozart’s piano concerto K 467.

Hannes Sonntag studied in Essen, Frankfurt, Münster and Detmold (Germany). He immediately went on to become selected as a master student of Stefan Askenase. This great pianist with a direct teaching linkage to Emil von Sauer, Franz Liszt and Frédéric Chopin, became a long-standing mentor and close friend of him for over a decade. Bound to the romantic era of Chopin’s piano play, Stefan Askenase had substantial impact on the development of Hannes Sonntag’s own pianistic style. In addition, a personal meeting with Arthur Rubinstein in Amsterdam had artistic importance to him.

Hannes Sonntag’s performances have taken him to many places in Germany as well as in other European countries and Israel. With the opening of the Soviet Union in 1990, Hannes Sonntag began to give solo concerts in Russia. There he also organized master courses for young Russian pianists. He was portrayed on Russian radio and television with works by Frédéric Chopin.

From 1995 to 2005, Hannes Sonntag was intensively engaged in chamber music. Together with Russian-born violinist Svetlana Fomina he created the ‘Duo Esterhazy’. The duo’s first CD, published under the label ‘audite’, was internationally appraised by receiving the prestigious strad selection star award from ‘THE Strad’ (London). The CD was also celebrated as the CD of the week by the Eurpean culture channel ‘ARTE’ (Paris) and as one of the Best CD’s of the year by ‘DIE ZEIT’ (Hamburg).

His latest CD, released in 2010 (Musicom), was acknowledged with great enthusiam. Carsten Dürer commented in ‘PianoNews’: “A wonderful interpreter of Bach is playing here“. In the same way Jeremy Nicholas (London), one of the most prominent british music critics, got enthusiastic about Sonntag’s Bach.

In 2009 Hannes Sonntag discovered the baroque castle of Schieder (Lippe) as a perfect place for chamber concerts. Starting the ‘Schlosskonzerte Schieder’ now he is artist in residence there.

Michael Wladkowski

Michael Wladkowski’s enthusiasm and artistic curiosity have led him to explore a repertoire spanning the works of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Debussy to works by Alkan and Szymanowski and on to works of contemporary composers such as Thon Tat Thiet, Antoine Tisné and Tolia Nikiprowetzky, who have dedicated major works to him.

This constantly expanding artistic horizon leads Wladkowski beyond the convention of classical performances to connect with audiences. His recitals combined with poetry read by members of the Comedie Française or his lecture recitals highlighting differences and similarities between the great classic works and contemporary works reveals his exploration of blurring genre boundaries.

Wladkowski’s pursuit of new challenges has led him to constantly expanding his horizon. Among his many recordings for Solstice, REM and Peyrole are the piano works of Karol Szymanowski, whose favorite pupil Piotr Perkowski, himself Wladkowski’s teacher, often remarked on the uncanny similarity between Wladkowski’s performance and that of the master.

Just as he has continually widened his artistic horizons, Wladkowski has ignored linguistic and cultural barriers. He studied in the United States, Poland and Austria and speaks fluent English, French, German, Polish, Russian, Hebrew and Italian.

In addition to his solo work, Wladkowski is an avid chamber music performer and has collaborated with many outstanding musicians including Laurent Korcia, Mark Varshawsky and the Kocian Quartet.

His performances the world over have been unanimously greeted with enthusiasm as Pierre Petit of “Le Figaro” noted “Wladkowski is remarkable, an authentic musician who posseses an immediate and splendid contact and who is brilliantly communicative”.

Wladkowski’s passion for the younger generation finds an outlet in his piano class at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris where his students include many prize winners of international piano competitions. He is equally in demand for master classes which find him regularly in all the european countries, Israel, U.S.A, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan and Russia.

Brescia Classica2nd International Piano Competition

Brescia Classica
2nd International Piano Competition