BARCELONA
PIANO ACADEMY
ALBERT ATTENELLE
Born in Barcelona, showing his musical talent already at an early age. He gave his first concert at the age of six. The great teacher Frank Marshall, who assisted the concert, became responsible from then onwards for his further pianistic formation, transferring to him in the course of the following years the legacy of the Catalan school of piano dating back to Joaquim Malats, Ricard Viñes and Albéniz, as well as Granados and Frank Marshall himself. He later continued his studies in Paris under the guidance of Marcel Ciampi.
His exposition as a soloist of the orchestras of Bilbao and Barcelona in 1957 as well as obtaining several international awards (Rio de Janeiro, Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, Vianna da Motta of Lisboa, etc...) have placed him in the forefront of today's pianistists of his generation.
His career has developed as a soloist and interpreter of chamber music in Europe, America and Japan; as a soloist of important orchestras interpreting a great number of concerts from Bach to the contemporanies, including Beethoven, Chopin, Franck, Schumann, Ravel, Stravinsky, Poulenc, Saint-Saens, Prokofiev, Bartok, etc., and he has been directed by Janos Sandor, Peter Maag, Ros-Marbà, Ronald Zolmann, Walter Weller, Gary Bertini, Christopher Hogwood, etc...
Furthermore his prolonged dedication to chamber music has allowed him to cover all the trios, quartets and quintets for piano by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, as well as other works by Dvoräk, Ravel, Shostakovich, Messiaen, Guinjoan, J.L. Turina, Casablancas, Brotons, Joaquin Turina, etc., collaborating with soloists such as Ludwig Streicher, Gonçal Comellas, Agustïn León-Ara, Michel Léthiec, Ashan Pillai and string quartets like Quartetto Stradivari, the Rafael Quartet, Lindsay Quartet, etc.
His discography includes the concerts for piano and orchestra by Luis de Pablo, Robert Gerhard, several volumes dedicated to Deodat de Séverac (Columna Música), Joaquin Nin-Culmell (Anacrusi), Frederic Mompou (EMI), chamber music, as a member of the Trio de Barcelona, Beethoven's Triple Concerto and the Mendelssohn and Dvorák Trios (Harmonia Mundi). He has also recently recorded a CD of the sonates for violin and piano by Pau Casals and Gaspar Cassadó in collaboration with Agustin León Ara (Columna Música) and the Sonatas for violin and piano, viola and piano, and violoncello and piano by Lluis Benejam (ASV), as well as re-edited the works by Frederic Mompou (EMI), The Suite Iberia and La Vega by Isaac Albéniz (Columna Música) and works by Mompou (Columna Música), that includes Variations on a Theme of Chopin, a piece that he premiered in Madrid in 1964. Among his recent recordings, special mention should be made to Goyescas by Enrique Granados (Columna Música).
He had held profesorship in the Masters program of performance at the University of A Coruña. He is professor at the Liceu Conservatory in Barcelona and Director of L'Escola de Música de Barcelona. He gives masterclasses in many different countries. Recently, he has been invited by Sidney University for teaching, as well as to perform several recitals in Australia, offering differents programs, including Spanish composers like Granados, Mompou, Albéniz and Falla. He has published a revised edition of the Suite Iberia of Isaac Albéniz, and he has been awarded the Albéniz Medal, bestowed by the Town Hall of Camprodon, for his contribution to the difussion of this great composer's music.
CORDELIA HÖFER-
Born in Marseille in a musicians family, Jacques Rouvier studied with Vlado Perlemuter, Pierre Sancan and Jean Hubeau at the Paris National Superior Conservatory of Music, where he obtained first prizes in Piano and Chamber Music. He also completed his education with harmony and orchestra conducting.
He owes Pierre Barbizet and Jean Fassina a great pedagogic and human enrichment.
Prize winner of several competitions including the Viotti, Maria Canals, European Union of Radios and Long-Thibaud, he created in 1970 the Rouvier-Kantorow-Muller piano trio with whom he performed during 35 years.
He participated as a soloist or chamber musician in many festivals and academies (Prades,Spoleto, Aix- en- Provence, Kuhmo, Holland Music Sessions... ) and was invited to do master-classes all around the world.
His recordings of complete works for piano by Maurice Ravel and sonatas for violin and piano by Ravel and Debussy were awarded „Grand Prix du Disque“. He also recorded the complete works by Claude Debussy (DENON) and more than 30 other CDs.
Invited to participate in the juries of many prestigious international competitions (Tschaikowsky, Montreal, Marguerite-Long, Dublin, Leeds, Hamamatsu, Santander, Seoul, Geneve...) he has been teaching at CNSM de Paris since 1979 and also at UdK Berlin since 2006. He is in University Salzburg-Mozarteum since 2012.
MATTI RAEKALLIO
Finnish pianist Matti Raekallio was born 1954 in Helsinki.
He studied in his home country as well as with Maria Curcio in London, England, with Dieter Weber at the Vienna Academy of Music in Austria, and at the Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) Conservatory in Russia.
Mr. Raekallio made his American debut in 1981 at the Carnegie (Weill) Recital Hall. In his concerts, he has performed cycles of the complete piano Sonatas of Beethoven, Scriabin, and Prokofiev, as well as altogether 62 piano concertos. He has made about 20 CDs, including an acclaimed set of the complete Prokofiev Sonatas.
He first taught for 30 years at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, while also temporarily working as professor in Kungliga Musikhögskolan in Stockholm, Sweden, and at Western Michigan University, USA. In 2005, Mr. Raekallio became professor of the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien in Hannover, Germany. Two years later, in 2007, he received the invitation to join the faculty of The Juilliard School in New York. He shuttled between USA and Europe for a few years, until settling in New York in 2015.
In the USA, and concurrently with his work at Juilliard, Mr. Raekallio has held part-time professorships at Bard College Conservatory and at Oberlin College Conservatory. From 2018 on, he is based exclusively at Juilliard.
His students include several first prizewinners in major international competitions. He regularly serves as a juror in them, and gives master classes in the USA, Europe and Asia.
Mr. Raekallio’s Doctorate (Dr. Mus.) at the Sibelius Academy focused of the history of piano fingering. Subsequently, Prof. Raekallio became a member of an international research team, investigating pianists' choice of fingering from the viewpoint of cognitive psychology. Mr. Raekallio received the Leonie Sonning Foundation Grant (Denmark) in 1980, and was recipient of the five-year Artist Grant of the state of Finland three times altogether. He served for three years, 1998-2000, as a member of the Finnish Academy’s Council for Research of Culture and Society. In 2009, he became Honorary Doctor of the Estonian Academy of Music.
BRUNO RIGUTTO
DEIRDRE O'DONOHUE
Bruno Rigutto studied the piano at the Paris Conservatory in the class of Lucette Descaves, chamber music with Jean Hubeau and composition and conducting.
After his graduation, he was laureate of the competitions Marguerite Long (1963) and Tchaikovsky (1966), in Paris and Moscow (headed by Emil Gilels). In 1962, he met Samson François, who took him as his only disciple for ten years.
Bruno Rigutto quickly began his international career, invited by the greatest conductors such as Carlo Maria Giulini, George Priest, Lorin Maazel, Leonard Bernstein, Zdenek Macal, Serge Baudo, Kurt Masur, Marc Soustrot, Antonello Allemandi, Laurent Petitgirard and others.
Bruno Rigutto dedicated a great part of his work to chamber music. He played with Isaac Stern, Mstislav Rostropovich, Arto Noras, Yo-Yo Ma, Barbara Hendricks, Michel Portal, Patrice Fontanarosa, Brigitte Engerer, Laurent Korcia, Pierre Amoyal, Henri Demarquette, Alexander Knyazev, Augustin Dumay, Quartets Debussy, Modigliani…
His discography is important. He recorded forty CDs for Decca, EMI, Forlane, Denon, Lyrinx, and received several Grand Prix du Disque and French awards, including “Victory of music”.
A box of his Decca recordings, from Haydn to Prokofiev, was edited in 2014.
Conductor and composer, he created original sountracks for several movies and theater, specifically staged by Bernard Murat.
He was made Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 2007.
Teaching takes an important place in his life: He has been professor for over twenty years at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et Danse de Paris, where he succeeded Maestro Aldo Ciccolini.
He was the teacher of many young soloists who now lead a great international career: Kotaro Fukuma, Romain Descharmes, Guillaume Coppola, Etsuko Hirose, Lise De la Salle, Claire- Marie Le Guay, Romain Hervé, Francois Dumont, Hélène Tysman...
In addition to his participation at the French national summer academies (Nice International Academy, Musicalp in Tignes, etc.), he is regularly invited to lead masterclasses in Europe, China, Korea and Japan (Toho College, Sendai, Nagoya), and currently in the Barcelona Piano Academy.
Living in Paris, Bruno Rigutto now teaches at the École Normale de Musique Alfred Cortot, and since September 2014, he teaches and prepares pianists for international competitions at the Schola Cantorum of Paris.
Dr. Deirdre O'Donohue is a member of the artist piano and chamber music faculty at NYU's Steinhardt School in the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions, and also the college and precollege faculties of Manhattan School of Music. She has performed solo and chamber recitals in Austria, the Netherlands, Italy, Canada and the United States. She has also given masterclasses and lecture/demonstrations at the Uniwersytet Muzyczny Fryderka Chopina in Warsaw, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, the Shanghai Conservatory, the Poona Music Society in India, the Rotterdam Conservatory, the World Piano Pedagogy Conference and at numerous music institutions throughout the United States, and Canada. Dr. O'Donohue received the Sparrendam Medal for performance in the Netherlands, and the Roger Phelps Award from New York University for her dissertation entitled “The Concept of Unity and Uniqueness in the Multi-Movement Works of Beethoven.”
Recent engagements: Curso de Piano at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Castilla y Leon in Salamanca, Spain (3/2016); Summer faculty, coach and performer: Interharmony International Music Festival (Germany); Adamant Music School in Vermont; Summer Trios
(Pennsylvania); Lectures/demonstrations: the Uniwersytet Muzyczny Fryderyka Chopina (Warsaw, Poland); the Piano Teachers' Congress (Steinway Hall); the National Feis Ceoil Competition (Dublin); Adjudicator: Young Artists Festival in Seattle; the Royal Irish Academy of Music's Piano Festival; the MTNA National Conference; Ithaca College of Music; Leschetizsky Association, NYSMTA, NJMTA, NHMTA and external examiner for the Royal Irish Academy; Masterclasses at Interharmony International Music Festival (Germany); Yahama (NY); NYU, Queens College, New Hampshire, South Carolina; Intensive week-long courses in piano technique and interpretation at the Gijon Conservatory in Spain; solo recitals in Weill Recital Hall, NYU; Convention Clinician for the South Carolina MTA.
She has co-edited (with Prof. Henk Hillenaar), the book Schubert and Friendship by Michael Davidson which was published by the London publisher, Kahn & Averill in the Fall of 2012.
Deirdre O'Donohue is Past President of the NY State Music Teachers' Association, former Chairperson of the MTNA's Eastern Division High School Competition, and former Chairperson and founder of the NYSTMA Empire State Performance Competition. Since the summer of 2001 she has been on the faculty of the Adamant Music School in Adamant, Vermont where she is also the Coordinator for week-long piano masterclasses of Menahem Pressler, John O'Conor and Andre Laplante. She is also on the piano faculty of the Interharmony International Music Festival and coaches chamber music at Summertrios
Dr. O'Donohue holds degrees from New York University, the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna, Austria, and Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts.
STANISLAV POCHEKIN
Stanislav Pochekin completed his studies at the Gnesin Institute in Moscow. Among his teachers were Eduard Mirzoian and Theodor Gutman. On the completion of his studies he taught at the Conservatoire in Ekaternburg (Russia).
In 1989 he went to Cuba where he worked as a professor in Havana at the “Instituto Superior del Arte”.
During his teaching career he has prepared more than 250 pianists for diplomas. For pedagogical achievements, S. Pochekin was awarded with an Honorable Medal by the Ministry of Culture of Russia.
His vast repertoire extend from the baroque to the contemporary music. He has performed as soloist and with orchestras conducted by very famous artists such as M. Paverman, F. Glushenko, I. Lapinsh. R.S. Ferrer, J. Medina and many others.
In 1993 he was appointed to the “Concervatorio del Liceo de Barcelona” in Spain.
His pupils have won more than 50 prizes in national and international competitions.
S. Pochekin gives masterclasses in Europe, Asia and America. He is a jury member at national and international competitions, including competitions in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, USA, Cuba and Russia.
Since 1995 S. Pochekin has been the Director of Piano Department at the Conservatory del Liceo in Barcelona and professor at the Klavierakademie in Murrhardt (Germany). He is the Artistic director of the International Piano Competition in Andorra.
HORTENSE CARTIER-BRESSON
Hortense Cartier-Bresson enrolled at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris at the age of 15, where she obtained no less than five “premiers prix”. Later admitted to the “cycle de perfectionnement”, she met with the great Hungarian pianist Gÿorgy Sebök and was invited to study in his class at the University of Indiana in Bloomington (USA).
Rapidly noticed as “one of the most remarkable pianists of her generation”, she obtained the 3d prize at the Liszt-Bartok Contest of 1981 in Budapest (1st prize not awarded). Thereafter, a brilliant career started leading to recitals or solo performances on the international stage with great orchestras such as the Orchestre de Paris directed by Ricardo Chailly and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra directed by Antal Dorati.
She was appointed to a piano professorship at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et Danse de Paris in 2011.
A singular and passionate musician, Hortense Cartier-Bresson approaches music of all kinds with the highest integrity. She is especially appreciated as a chamber musician. She has played with many others including Roger Muraro, Raphaël Oleg, Ayako Tanaka, Philippe Graffin, Pierre Fouchenneret, François Salque, Henri Demarquette, Xavier Gagnepain and the Quatuor Ébène.
SORIN ENACHESCU
Born in Reghin (Romania) the pianist Sorin Enachescu got his basic piano education in Tg.Mures/Romania by Sarolta Trozner, the niece of the composer Ferenc Erkel. He studied and graduated with Concert-Diploma at the Conservatories of Cluj and Bucharest by Georg Halmos (pupil of Emil von Sauer in Vienna) and Florica Musicescu, the teacher of Dinu Lipatti. Graduated and same year finalist of “A.Casagrande” international piano competition in Italy, he becomes 1971 univ.-assistant to the Bucharest Music University. Concerts and records are completing his pedagogic activities. Since 1977 in Germany, Sorin Enachescu is teaching from 1977-1980 at the Hamburger Konservatorium and studies as Siemens-scholarship holder by Prof. Yara Bernette at the Musikhochschule Hamburg. Master classes with Eliza Hansen, Elgin Roth, Christoph Eschenbach and Justus Frantz. Solo and chamber music recordings for German Radios SFB and WDR.
1983-1985 he taught at the Music School of Mannheim, 1985 he was appointed as teacher to the University of the Arts Berlin (Universität der Künste). Besides his concerts as solo - chamber music and lied-accompaniment pianist he plays horn-trio with violinist Marianne Boettcher and hornist of Berlin Philharmonics Stefan Jezserski and piano-duo with his pianists-colleagues Fabio Bidini, Pascal Devoyon and Elena Lapitskaja. He also teaches master classes in Berlin, the Royal College of Music London, Music University of Bucharest, Gangneung University of Korea as well as leader juror by international competitions in Italy. Sorin Enachescu was nominated 1999 Honorary Professor at the University of the Arts in Berlin (Universität der Künste), 2006 becomes full professor for piano of the same university. His students won different international prizes in Germany, Italy and USA.