Gwendolyn Masin & Faruk Kalaycı - International Gümüşlük Music Festival

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GWENDOLYN MASIN

“A daring and exciting performer who ventures courageously into unknown territory with relish.”

– The Irish Times

Gwendolyn Masin is one of today’s significant concert violinists and an innovator in classical music. She performs internationally as a soloist, and in collaboration with musicians, artists, and orchestras. Tours and live recordings include performances with all the Irish Symphony and Concert orchestras, many of the Hungarian Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, numerous Swiss Orchestras such as the Bernese Symphony Orchestra, the Slovak State Philharmonic, and orchestras of the Americas such as Orquesta Filarmónica de la UNAM, Savannah and Georgia Philharmonic Orchestras. Concerts and masterclasses take her all over Europe and the United States, as well as Asia, South Africa, and the Middle East.

Masin is a recording artist for Naxos and Orchid Classics and a commissioner for contemporary music. She has premiered works by, amongst others, Thorsten Encke, Ákos Hoffman, Don Li, Daniel Schnyder, Dobrinka Tabakova and John Buckley. The latter dedicated his first violin concerto to her.

Her discography covers a wide spectrum of repertoire including neglected works by Irene Wieniawska or Zara Levina and much-loved favourites such as Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. The latter was voted amongst the top five releases of 2020 by Art Muse London.

Violin in hand, she has been a keynote speaker at platforms as diverse as international conferences of the European String Teachers Association, TEDxBern, TU Dublin’s Conservatory of Music and Drama, the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Conservatório de Música da Metropolitana Lisbon, Swiss Fundraising, a string of colleges in North America including Princeton University, Berklee College of Music, Georgia Southern University Armstrong Campus, as well as major institutes in South Korea, Hong Kong, and Israel.

Masin is founding artistic director of GAIA Music Festival. The festival takes place annually since 2006 and is recognised as one of Switzerland’s chamber music centers. Notable artistic partnerships include her own series for Casino Bern for which Masin created elaborate, one-off productions involving classical music and other music genres and art disciplines from 2018 to 2023. Masin is artistic director of the International Chamber Music Series, and artistic director and faculty member of the International Master Course at Dublin’s National Concert Hall. Faculty members of the NCH IMC summer festival academy have included Gilles Apap, Frans Helmerson, Gary Hoffman, Kim Kashkashian, Mihaela Martin, and Lars Anders Tomter. She is a director of the Music Instrument Fund of Ireland which celebrates 30 years in 2025 and is a member of the Cultural Commission of Berne.

In 2009, the award-winning, Michaela’s Music House, The Magic of the Violin, was published. It marked her as the youngest female violinist to have penned her own violin method. The book includes her own études and compositions and is available in English and German as part of the ESTA Edition collection available via Swiss music publisher house Müller & Schade. Masin’s articles have been published in The Strad Magazine, The Journal of Music, and other trade journals. From 2013 to 2020, Masin was professor and researcher of violin studies at the Haute École de Musique de Genève, Switzerland.

In 2020, as a response to COVID-19, Masin brought her in-person retreat, The Exhale, online. The Exhale provides professional courses and holistic masterclasses to musicians, practitioners, and artists from across the globe. During its two-year online presence, a team of 90 artists created more than 1,000 hours of classes, attracting more than 2,000 participants.

Masin holds degrees with highest honours from the Royal Schools of Music London; the Hochschule der Künste Berne; the Musikhochschule Lübeck, and a PhD from Trinity College. Her teachers included Shmuel Ashkenasi, Zakhar Bron, Ana Chumachenco, Herman Krebbers, and Igor Ozim. She studies conducting in the class of Florian Ziemen since 2024.

She is the first Licensed Body Mapping Educator (Association for Body Mapping Education) in Switzerland. The violinist has Dutch, Hungarian, Czech, Irish, South African, and Swiss background, and speaks five languages.

FARUK KALAYCI

Born in Istanbul in 2000, Faruk Kalayci, started his piano studies as a part-time student at the University of Istanbul State Conservatory at age six with Prof. Eser Bilgeman Sakir. After spending five years studying at the aforesaid as a part-time student, he moved on to become full-time due to high achievement and ability with encouragement from his teachers in 2011 in the same institution.

Having participated in various concert halls in Istanbul for selected students; Kalayci received an Honourable Mention in the Kamuran Gundemir Piano Competion in Mersin in 2013 in his age category. In the same year, in Istanbul, he was given the second prize in the Pera International Piano competition. In 2014, he took part as the soloist with the Classical Music orchestra of the Bakirkoy Council. In the same year, he received the right to play Mozart’s Piano Concerto KV545 in A Major with the student orchestra of the University of Istanbul State Conservatory as the soloist and received acclaim with the performance at CKM. In 2015 selections, he received the right to play J.S. Bach’s piano concerto in d minor with the same orchestra and received great acclaim. In the Young Soloist selection in May 2015 of the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra, he received the right to perform as a soloist and received very favourable criticisms following the concert at the Fulya Arts Centre. Kalayci, having won the soloist competition organised by IDSO in 2016, performed at the Youth Concert in 19th May and received acclaim. In December 2016 he received the second prize at the First Annual Bursa Nilüfer Piano Competition. 2017 May, he won the first prize of his category, Grand Prix and the “Best performer of the Turkish Composer” award, in The 12. International Pera Piano Competition.

In 2021, Kalayci, released his first recording, “F. Liszt: Ballade no.2″ labeled by A.K Music, which has been published on all social platforms. He performed the 2nd Piano Concerto of F. Chopin with the CRR Young Chamber Orchestra in 2022 in the CRR Concert Hall. Kalayci was invited to the many international festivals, such as “International Bodrum Music Festival” ,“Pitsunda International Music Festival” ,”Pianissimo Festival”. In 2025 January, he won the 5th prize of Fujairah International Piano Competition in UAE and performed the 2nd piano concerto of F. Chopin with Uzbekistan State Conservatory Orchestra. Same year he was invited to “Pianissimo Piano Festival”. Same year in September, Kalayci won the the first prize and Grand Prix of the International Montenegro Piano Competition. In February 2026, Kalayci released his first Album “Divine” on all platforms with the label of KNS Classical. Kalaycı has an upcoming Europe Concerts Tour planned for the 2026-2027 Season.

Kalayci has taken active part in the masterclasses of Herbert Schuh, Gulsin Onay, Martha Gulyas, Aldo Ragone, Tomislav Baynov, Ewa Poblocka, Pablo Galdo, Ruvim Ostrovskiy, Inesa Sinkevych, Eteri Andjaparidze, So Yeon Lee, Alexander Korsantia and Natalia Trull.

In the year 2024, Kalayci received a Fulbright scholarship at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory for his Master of Music Degree. Currently, he is a second-grade student in the class of Natalia Trull.

CONCERT PROGRAM

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
Sonata No. 1 in G minor for Solo Violin, BWV 1001