Pianist and Professor Emeritus of the Paris Conservatory and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Former advisor to the Ministries of Culture in Poland and France. Author of the European program „The Piano as a Reflection of European Cultures”. Founder of the „Chopin Festival of Nohant” (France). Founder and Artistic Director of „Paderewski Days in New York”, „Paderewski Festival of Raleigh” (USA) and „Krakow Piano Summer”.
American pianist Angie Zhang, top prize winner at the 2023 Chopin International Piano Competition on Period Instruments and Honens International Piano Competition, is hailed as "warmly expressive, sensitive, and polished" and "a valuable advocate for classical music" by NY Concert Review. Angie has appeared as soloist with orchestras since she was 10 years old, including with the National Symphony Orchestra of the Dominican Republic, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Aspen American Academy of Conducting Orchestra, as well as the Juilliard, {oh!} Period Orchestra Poland, Missouri, Milwaukee, Michigan, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Olympia, Portland Columbia Orchestras and conducted Mozart from the piano at Lincoln Center. She has worked with conductors such as Fabio Luisi and Jeffrey Kahane, and shared the stage with Itzhak Perlman. She has performed all over the USA and Canada, as well as in England, Germany, Italy, France, Austria, Poland and China. A fourth generation musician, she is also known for being a dedicated and inspirational teacher. Angie was the youngest at Juilliard to teach in all three divisions (pre-college, college, extension), won her first Assistant Professor position in piano, cello, and theory during her DMA, and has taught at the collegiate level for over 10 years. She actively serves as an adjudicator of competitions and scholarships, pedagogical clinician, lecturer, and ambassador for the arts outside of the music industry. Angie is a Yamaha and Bosendorfer Artist worldwide. Angie will earn her DMA in Piano Performance and MM in Fortepiano Performance from the University of Michigan. Influential figures include Logan Skelton, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Joseph Kalichstein, Robert Levin, Emanuel Ax, Wu Han, Jeremy Denk, Matthew Bengtson, and Malcolm Bilson. Next season includes engagements with orchestras and recitals around the world including performances in Krakow and Żelazowa Wola. Angie is also an accomplished and acclaimed fortepianist and leading American figure in period instruments.
– Wojciech Kocyan was praised for his “highly distinctive performances (…) superb, intelligent artistry (…)” (.Classics Today.com) and “incisive temperament, impeccable technique and sumptuous tone” (Le Monde de la Musique.) He was born in Poland. He studied with two of the world’s most esteemed piano pedagogues: Andrzej Jasinski in Poland, where he received his Master’s Degree and with John Perry at the University of Southern California, where he received a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree. He is a laureate of several international piano competitions, including F. Busoni and Viotti, as well as a special prizes winner of the XI International Chopin Competition and the First Prize winner of the Paderewski Piano Competition. He performed in Europe, America, Australia and Japan, at the festivals Musica Antiqua Europae Orientalis, Capri Festival, Beethoven Fest, Paderewski Festival, Liszt Festival in Vienna and the Chopin Festival in Paris. His performances were broadcast in Europe, United States and Australia. Masterclasses in France, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Mexico, Japan and United States. He is the Artistic Director of the Paderewski Music Society in Los Angeles, the Artistic Director of the American International Paderewski Piano Competition in Los Angeles.
Master of Music, New England Conservatory. Classically trained Brenda Bruce will offer classes on improvising on familiar melodies from Broadway, Big Band Era and American Hollywood movies. She developed her skills in popular music which afforded her many career opportunities. She has used her skills for the pleasure of the public in many hotels, clubs, private parties, and an unusual 12-year gig playing at SAS Institute, a private software development company.
Born and raised in California (U.S.A.), Andrew Yang follows an active international performance career across Europe, the United States, Canada, and Asia. He founded the Iceland Piano Festival. Yang has won several prizes from international piano competitions and performed include at the Mozarthaus Vienna), Harpa Reykjavík, Musiikkitalo Helsinki, Judaica Foundation Krakow, Murphy Recital Hall Los Angeles, Hoheikan Japan, and New York venues Victor Borge Hall, Carnegie Hall. His teachers and musical mentors include William Wellborn, Antoinette Perry, Adam Wibrowski, Dang Thai Son, Ruth Slenczynska..
Pianist Peter Wittenberg comes from a Latvian family of musicians and received his first piano lessons at an early age. At the age of 16, he won the Bronislaw Kaper Prize of the Los Angeles Philharmonic with Sergei Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto. Since then, Peter Wittenberg has been a guest worldwide on such renowned concert stages as the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Menuhin Festival Gstaad, New York's Carnegie Weill Hall, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, the Athenaeum Bucharest, the Grossersaal of the Salzburg Mozarteum, and the Philharmonie Baden-Baden. Peter Wittenberg completed his piano studies in the USA. He studied at Indiana University with Lev Vlassenko, at the Juilliard School of Music in New York with Jerome Lowenthal and also with Vitaly Margulis and Maurizio Pollini at the Accademia Chigiana. He has attended master classes with Dmitri Bashkirov, Halina Czerny-Stefanska, Fou T'song, Béla Siki and Lev Naumov. He is regularly engaged as a piano accompanist at well-known competitions such as the Salzburg International Mozart Competition.