Polish-American pianist Adam Golka (born 1987) first performed all of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas when he was 18 years-old, and in 2020-2021 Adam Golka performed the cycle of Beethoven's 32 Sonatas at the Bach Festival Society of Winter Park (Florida) and at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue (NYC), in socially-distanced and live-stream formats. Adam's performances of each Sonata were complemented by 32 short films he created, known as 32@32 (available on YouTube), documenting his preparation for climbing the Everest of piano literature and featuring an amalgam of distinguished guests, from an astrophysicist to Alfred Brendel.

Adam Golka's principal teachers have been José Feghali, with whom he studied at Texas Christian University, and Leon Fleisher, at the Peabody Conservatory. Since finishing his formal studies, Adam has continued to develop his artistry through mentorship from Alfred Brendel, Richard Goode, Murray Perahia, Mitsuko Uchida, Evelyne Crochet, Ferenc Rados, Rita Wagner, and Sir András Schiff, who invited Adam to give recitals at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr and Tonhalle Zürich, for the "Sir András Schiff Selects" concert series. Adam has also given solo recitals in Tokyo's Musashino Hall, New York's Alice Tully Hall (presented by the Musicians Emergency Fund), and Amsterdam's Kleine Zaal in Het Concertgebouw.

As a concerto soloist, he has appeared with dozens of orchestras, including the BBC Scottish Symphony, NACO (Ottawa), Warsaw Philharmonic, NFM Leopoldinum, Shanghai Philharmonic, as well as the San Francisco, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, New Jersey, and San Diego symphonies in the US, among many others. Adam has enjoyed collaborations with conductors such as Joseph Swensen, Donald Runnicles, Pinchas Zukerman, Mark Wigglesworth, and his brother, conductor Tomasz Golka. Adam gave his Carnegie Stern Auditorium début in 2010 with the New York Youth Symphony.

Chamber music is an integral part of Adam Golka's life, and he has performed repeatedly at the Krzyżowa-Music "Music for Europe" festival, which has included tour performances at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the Beethoven Bonn festivals, as well as Konzerthaus Berlin. He also performed at the Marlboro, Ravinia, Caramoor chamber music festivals in the US. Adam collaborates regularly with the Manhattan Chamber Players and in recital with baritone John Moore, pianist Yannick Rafalimanana, cellist Jonathan Swensen and violinist Itamar Zorman, with whom he recently debuted at The Wigmore Hall in London.

Adam's professional life began when he was awarded the first prize and audience prize at the 2nd China Shanghai International Piano Competition. In 2009, he won the Max I. Allen Fellowship from American Pianists Association. As a pedagogue, he acted as Artist-in-Residence for six school years at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. Adam has recorded works by Beethoven, Schumann, and Brahms for London-based First Hand Records and he has premiered works composed for him by Richard Danielpour, Michael Brown, and Jarosław Gołębiowski.

Bulgarian pianist, Anna Petrova, praised for her “artistic, clear and enlightened” performances [BBC Magazine,] performs extensively as a soloist and chamber musician. She has won top prizes and recognitions at numerous international competitions, including the Jose Roca International Competition, Spain and the Queen Elizabeth Piano Competition, Belgium. Recent highlights include her New York City debut with conductor Philippe Entremont, a recording of Stravinsky’s Les Noces with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and conductor JoAnn Falletta (Naxos,) and solo and chamber music residencies at festivals across North America, Europe and Asia. In 2022 her debut solo CD “Slavic Heart” was released to critical acclaim on Germany’s Solo Musica label. Currently, she is working on a two-CD set of the complete piano sonatas of Russian composer, pianist and pedagogue, Samuil Feinberg for Naxos. An avid chamber musician, Petrova is a member of two award-winning ensembles: the viola-piano Carr-Petrova Duo, and the clarinet-viola-piano Iris Trio. In 2018 Petrova was honored at the United Nations for her work with refugees around the globe through the Carr-Petrova Duo’s Novel Voices Refugee Aid Project. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Manhattan School of Music, is Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of Louisville, KY, and visiting faculty at Musical Arts Madrid, Spain.

Acclaimed young American pianist Drew Petersen is a sought-after soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. He has been praised for his commanding and poetic performances of repertoire ranging from Bach to Zaimont, and is the recipient of the 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant, 2017 American Pianists Award, and the Christel DeHaan Fellow of the American Pianists Association. With the resumption of live concerts his 21/22 season will include orchestras in Cincinnati, Santa Fe, Buffalo, Delaware, Columbus and Indianapolis and recitals in San Francisco, Madison and Sanibel, FL. Recent highlights have included debuts with the Sarasota, Houston, Phoenix, Pacific, Milwaukee, Fort Smith, Buffalo, Waco and Allentown symphonies as well as his recital debut at the Kennedy Center. In solo recital Petersen has appeared at the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, University of Indianapolis, Williams College Concert Series, Dame Myra Hess Concerts in Chicago, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Brevard Music Center’s Summer Festival and Chicago’s Ravinia Festival. 2018 marked the release of his first solo recording of music by Barber, Carter, and other American composers on the Steinway & Sons label for which BBC Music Magazine acknowledged his presence as a rising star. A frequent radio contributor, Petersen has performed on McGraw-Hill Young Artists Showcase, From the Top, and Performance Today. Profiles include The New York Times, New York Magazine, and the documentary “just normal” by award-winning director Kim A. Snyder. A champion of chamber music, Petersen has appeared on French radio’s France Musique while a member of a Verbier Festival piano trio. Drew Petersen’s firm belief in the importance of music in contemporary society led to collaborations with Young Audiences NY that presents performances in New York City’s public schools. His appearance in Andrew Solomon’s New York Times bestselling book, Far From the Tree, sparked a nation-wide conversation on raising extraordinary and different children who test the willpower and capabilities of their families and society. Petersen continually advocates for the necessity of classical music and other arts in society, and was named a 2006 Davidson Fellow for his portfolio entitled Keeping Classical Music Alive.

Blessed with “poetic and sensitive pianism” (Washington Post) and a “wondrous sense of color” (SanFrancisco Classical Voice), Grammy-nominated pianist Joyce Yang captivates audiences with her virtuosity, lyricism, and interpretive sensitivity.

 

She first came to international attention in 2005 when she won the silver medal at the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The youngest contestant at 19 years old, she took home two additional awards: Best Performance of Chamber Music (with the Takàcs Quartet), and Best Performance of a New Work. In 2006 Yang made her celebrated New York Philharmonic debut alongside Lorin Maazel at Avery Fisher Hall along with the orchestra’s tour of Asia, making a triumphant return to her hometown of Seoul, South Korea. Yang’s subsequent appearances with the New York Philharmonic have included opening night of the 2008 Leonard Bernstein Festival – an appearance made at the request of Maazel in his final season as music director. The New York Times pronounced her performance in Bernstein’s The Age of Anxiety a “knockout.”

 

In the last decade, Yang has blossomed into an “astonishing artist” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung), showcasing her colorful musical personality in solo recitals and collaborations with the world’s top orchestras and chamber musicians through more than 1,000 debuts and re-engagements. She received the 2010 Avery Fisher Career Grant and earned her first Grammy nomination (Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance) for her recording of Franck, Kurtág, Previn & Schumann with violinist Augustin Hadelich (“One can only sit in misty-eyed amazement at their insightful flair and spontaneity.” – The Strad).

 

Other notable orchestral engagements have included the Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Hong Kong Philharmonic, the BBC Philharmonic, as well as the Toronto, Vancouver, Sydney, Melbourne, and New Zealand symphony orchestras. She was also featured in a five-year Rachmaninoff concerto cycle with Edo de Waart and the Milwaukee Symphony, to which she brought “an enormous palette of colors, and tremendous emotional depth” (Milwaukee Sentinel Journal).

 

In solo recitals, Yang’s innovative program has been praised as “extraordinary” and “kaleidoscopic” (Los Angeles Times). She has performed at New York City’s Lincoln Center and Metropolitan Museum, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Chicago’s Symphony Hall, Zurich’s Tonhalle, and all throughout Australia on a recital tour presented by Musica Viva.

 

As an avid chamber musician, Yang has collaborated with the Takács Quartet for Dvořák – part of Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series – and Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet with members of the Emerson String Quartet at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. Yang has fostered an enduring partnership with the Alexander String Quartet and together released three celebrated recordings under Foghorn Classics.

 

In 2020, Yang released her tenth album performing Jonathan Leshnoff’s Piano Concerto with the Kansas City Symphony (Reference Recordings) that was written for her. Textura magazine wrote “Joyce Yang delivers a riveting performance others would be hard pressed to better. … The opening movement dazzles from the start, with Yang expertly voicing chiming figures over insistent strings and the syncopated rhythms restlessly churning”. As a champion of new music, Yang has also premiered and recorded a World Premier discography of Michael Torke’s Piano Concerto with Albany Symphony and David Alan Miller (Albany Records). Yang’s wide-ranging discography also includes two celebrated solo discs (Collage and Wild Dreams, Avie Records), where she “demonstrated impressive gifts” (New York Times). Yang also released a live-performance recording of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Denmark’s Odense Symphony Orchestra (Bridge Records), which International Record Review called “hugely enjoyable, beautifully shaped … a performance that marks her out as an enormous talent.”

 

In recent years, Yang has focused on promoting creative ways to introduce classical music to new audiences. She served as the Guest Artistic Director for the Laguna Beach Music Festival in California, curating concerts that explore the “art-inspires-art” concept – highlighting the relationship between music and dance while simultaneously curating outreach activities to young students. Yang’s collaboration with the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet of Half/Cut/Split – a “witty, brilliant exploration of Robert Schumann’s Carnaval” (The Santa Fe New Mexican) choreographed by Jorma Elo – was a marriage between music and dance to illuminate the ingenuity of Schumann’s musical language. The group toured nationwide, including five performances at the Joyce Theater in New York.

 

In the 2021/2022 season, Yang will share her versatile repertoire in over 40 cities in the US and Europe. After returning to the stage in summer performances at Wolf Trap (with the National Symphony  Orchestra), Grant Park Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Sun Valley Music Festival, Yang will appear with the New World Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Utah Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Tucson Symphony, and Rhode Island Philharmonic, among many others. Furthermore, Yang will give a World Premier performance of Reinaldo Moya’s Piano Concerto with Bangor Symphony, which draws inspiration from Venezuelen artist Carlos Cruz-Diez. In recital, Yang will present daring programs of Bach, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky and Kernis as well as collaborate with the Takacs Quartet.

 

Born in 1986 in Seoul, South Korea, Yang received her first piano lesson from her aunt at the age of four. She quickly took to the instrument, which she received as a birthday present. Over the next few years won several national piano competitions in her native country. By the age of ten, she had entered the School of Music at the Korea National University of Arts, and went on to make a number of concerto and recital appearances in Seoul and Daejeon. In 1997, Yang moved to the United States to begin studies at the pre-college division of the Juilliard School with Dr. Yoheved Kaplinsky. During her first year at Juilliard, Yang won the pre-college division Concerto Competition, resulting in a performance of Haydn’s Keyboard Concerto in D with the Juilliard Pre-College Chamber Orchestra. After winning the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Greenfield Student Competition, she performed Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto with that orchestra at just twelve years old. She graduated from Juilliard with special honor as the recipient of the school’s 2010 Arthur Rubinstein Prize, and in 2011 she won its 30th Annual William A. Petschek Piano Recital Award.

 

Yang appears in the film In the Heart of Music, a documentary about the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. She is a Steinway artist.

Sebastian is a composer & pianist based in southern California. He utilizes a combination of traditional craft and modern aesthetics to create his unique style. His first major performance as a piano soloist was the premiere of his composition Concertino for Piano and Orchestra with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra at the age of 9. Sebastian obtained his B.M. in Composition from the Curtis Institute of Music & his M.M. in Composition from the University of Southern California. From ’16-’18, he was the Resident Composer of the Louisville Orchestra. He is the youngest three-time BMI Student Composer Awards winner in the history of the competition (’02, ’05, & ’07). He won five ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Awards (’01, ’02, ’04, ’05, & ’06). He was awarded a $50K scholarship as a Davidson Fellow Laureate by the Davidson Institute for Talent Development in '02. He played in the Louisville Orchestra in “The American Project” featuring Yuja Wang as piano soloist and Teddy Abrams and Michael Tilson Thomas as composers, which won a Grammy in the “Best Instrumental Classical Solo” category in ’24. His works have been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Symphony, the Pacific Symphony, the Louisville Ballet, the Louisville Orchestra, the Cleveland Chamber Festival, the Britt Festival Orchestra, the Louisville Chamber Choir, and the NouLou Chamber Players. His "Classical Symphony”, premiered by the Louisville Orchestra in January ‘15, is subject of Episode 9: “First Symphony” of the Music Makes a City Now PBS documentary cycle. "Between Heaven and Earth", in collaboration with Kurdish Baghdad-native visual artist Vian Sora, premiered on February 23 & 24, ’18 by the Louisville Orchestra & Louisville Chamber Choir, in Whitney Hall at the Kentucky Center, in Louisville, KY. Sebastian's new Piano Concerto "The Empress", for piano and full orchestra, premiered on June 17, '22, in the Britt Festival Pavilion by the Britt Festival Orchestra, in Jacksonville, OR. His new Piano Trio No. 2 “Beyond Silence” premiered on November 20, ‘22, by Trio Barclay, at the Barclay Theatre, in Irvine, CA. He performed the piano solo part to Bernstein’s “Symphony 2: The Age of Anxiety” with the Louisville Orchestra on March 31 & April 1, ’23, at Whitney Hall in the Kentucky Center, in Louisville, KY. His new film score for the silent horror classic “Nosferatu” premiered October 27 & 28, ’23, by the Louisville Orchestra at Whitney Hall in the Kentucky Center, in Louisville, KY. He is Louisville Orchestra’s first-call pianist. At the Orange County School of the Arts, he is an instructor for the Instrumental Music & Piano programs, and works as an accompanist for the Instrumental Music, Classical Voice, and Musical Theatre departments. His publishing company is Sebastian Press, registered under the American Society of Composers, Authors, & Publishers (ASCAP).

American pianist William Wolfram was a silver medalist at both the William Kapell and the Naumburg International Piano Competitions and a bronze medalist at the prestigious Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow.

​Wolfram has appeared with many of the greatest orchestras of the world and has developed a special reputation as the rare concerto soloist who is also equally versatile and adept as a recitalist, accompanist and chamber musician. In all of these genres, he is highly sought after for his special focus on the music of Franz Liszt and Beethoven and is a special champion for the music of modernist 20th century American composers.

 

His concerto debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony under the baton of Leonard Slatkin was the first in a long succession of appearances and career relationships with numerous American conductors and orchestras. He has also appeared with the San Francisco, Saint Louis, Indianapolis, Seattle and New Jersey symphonies, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington D.C.), the Baltimore Symphony, the Colorado Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Nashville Symphony, the Oregon Symphony, the Utah Symphony, the San Diego Symphony, the Edmonton Symphony, the Columbus Symphony, the Florida Orchestra, and the Grand Teton and San Luis Obispo Mozart festival orchestras, among many others. He enjoys regular and ongoing close associations with the Dallas Symphony, the Milwaukee Symphony, the Phoenix Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra as well as the musicians of the New York Philharmonic for chamber concerts in the United States.

 

Internationally recognized conductors with whom he has worked include Osmo Vanska, Andrew Litton, Jerzy Semkow, Mark Wigglesworth, Jeffrey Tate, Vladimir Spivakov, Michael Christie, Gerard Schwarz, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Jeffrey Kahane, James Judd, Roberto Minczuk, Stefan Sanderling, JoAnn Falletta, James Paul, Carlos Kalmar, Hans Vonk, Joseph Silverstein, Jens Nygaard, Yan Pascal Tortelier and Vasily Petrenko.

 

Abroad, Wolfram has appeared with the BBC Symphony Orchestra of London, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the RTE Symphony Orchestra of Ireland (Dublin), the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Bergen Philharmonic (Norway), the Beethovenhalle Orchestra Bonn, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and many others.

 

An enthusiastic supporter of new music, he has collaborated with and performed music by composers such as Aaron Jay Kernis, Kenneth Frazelle, Marc Andre Dalbavie, Kenji Bunch, and Paul Chihara. His world premiere performance of the Chihara re-orchestration of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1, with the Milwaukee Symphony under the baton of Andreas Delfs, was met with great critical attention and acclaim.

 

Other highlights include several chamber music collaborations, including recitals and recordings with Oscar Shumsky, recitals with Harvey Shapiro and numerous collaborations with Leonard Rose.  He also performed Richard Strauss’s setting of the Tennyson poem Enoch Arden with the Oscar-winning actress Louise Rainer, and with actor Jeff Steitzer.

 

Wolfram has also performed as a guest artist with prominent ballet companies including ABT, Pittsburgh Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Carolina Ballet and Boston Ballet, working with noted choreographers including Jiri Kylian, Edward Villella, Robert Weiss, and Agnes De Mille. 

 

Wolfram has extensive experience in the recording studio. He has recorded four titles on the Naxos label in his series of Franz Liszt Opera Transcriptions and two other chamber music titles for Naxos with violinist Philippe Quint (music of Miklos Rosza and John Corigliano). Also for Naxos he has recorded the music of Earl Kim with piano and orchestra - the RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland behind him. For the Albany label, he recorded the piano concertos of Edward Collins with Marin Alsop and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.  He most recently recorded the Bach Goldberg Variations on the PlayClassics label.

 

As educator and teacher, Mr. Wolfram serves as a member of the piano faculty at Manhattan School of Music, where he also coaches chamber music. He is also a long-standing member of the piano faculty at the Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina, and a regular featured guest at the Colorado College Music Festival in Colorado Springs, Colorado. 

 

In print and other media Wolfram was the focus of a full chapter in Joseph Horowitz's book, The Ivory Trade: Music and the Business of Music at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. On television, he was a featured pianist in the documentary of the 1986 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition.

 

A graduate of the Juilliard School, William Wolfram resides in New York City and is a Yamaha artist.