GFA Piano 1 Masterclass

Charles Owen

Charles Owen enjoys an extensive international career performing a wide-ranging repertoire to outstanding critical acclaim. He appears at major UK venues such as Bridgewater Hall, The Sage, Wigmore Hall & Kings Place. Internationally, he has performed at the Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in New York, the Brahms Saal in Vienna’s Musikverein, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Melbourne Recital Centre. His chamber music partners include Alina Ibragimova, Johan Dalene, Imogen Cooper, Steven Isserlis and Augustin Hadelich. Ensemble collaborations encompass the Carducci, Heath, Sacconi and Takács string quartets.

A regular guest at UK festivals such as Aldeburgh, Bath, Cheltenham, Three Choirs and Ryedale he has also performed in Australia at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Townsville and the Verbier Festival, Switzerland. Charles’s concerto appearances have included the Philharmonia, Hallé, Aurora and London Philharmonic orchestras. He has enjoyed collaborations with many leading conductors including Sir Mark Elder, Ryan Wigglesworth, Nicholas Collon and Martyn Brabbins.

Charles’s acclaimed solo discography comprises piano music by JS Bach, Brahms, Fauré, Liszt, Janáček, Poulenc & Schumann. Chamber music albums include two-piano works by Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky & Poulenc with Katya Apekisheva, a disc of Janáček, Suk & Dvorak with violinist Augustin Hadelich and the world premiere recordings of the Piano Quintet & ´Between Friendsˋ by Jonathan Dove.

Together with pianist Katya Apekisheva he is Co-Artistic Director of London Piano Festival, a celebration of the instrument held annually at Kings Place. The LPF has commissioned leading composers Sally Beamish, Nico Muhly, Elena Langer & Stephen Hough to write new works for piano duo.

Charles Owen is a Professor of Piano at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. He was appointed Steinway & Sons UK Ambassador in 2016 and is also an ambassador for the charity Help Musicians.

Vasco Silva Dantas Rocha

“A rare pianist for his great generosity and emotive force, Mr. Dantas is characterized by the intensity and sweetness simultaneously consigned in his interpretations” © Düren Newspaper, Germany

Vasco Dantas, Portuguese pianist born in Porto in 1992, obtained his Bachelor in Music with ‘1st Class Distinction’ at the London Royal College of Music, studying piano with Dmitri Alexeev and Niel Immelman, and conducting with Peter Stark and Natalia Luis-Bassa. He concluded a Master in Performance with highest mark under the guidance of Heribert Koch, as well as at the Doctoral study “Konzertexamen” at the University of Münster.

Vasco is artist director of the Music Series Festivals, including Algarve Music Series, Sezim Music Series and Piano Concerto Festival. He has been awarded over 50 prizes and distinctions in international competitions, including: GianClaudio Chiais International Prize (Rome), Grand Prix at Valletta International Piano Competition (Malta), Prix Spécial at Concours International de Piano SAR La Princesse Lalla Meryem (Morroco), 3rd Prize at Münster Steinway & Sons Piano Competition, Travel-Scholarship to Bayreuther Festspiele 2016 by Richard Wagner Foundation, Golden Medal of Merit (Matosinhos city, Portugal), Fundação Eng. António de Almeida Prize, Best Portuguese Prize (Viseu International Competition), Esther Fisher Prize (2013 best undergraduate of London RCM), Antena 2 Prize (Portuguese National Radio), Henry Wood Trust Prize (2011 & 2012), Casa da Música Prize 2009, and the following 1st Prizes: Porto International Competition Santa Cecília, Estoril Lisbon Competition, Ría de Vigo International Piano Competition, Alto Minho International Piano Competition, Fundao International Piano Competition, the Florinda Santos International Piano Competition, Maestro Ivo Cruz Chamber Music Competition.

In 2022, he made his solo debut at the Theatre des Champs-Elysées (Paris) with the Orquestra Filarmónica Portuguesa. In 2019 Vasco made his Carnegie Hall piano recital debut, in New York. In 2017 Vasco made his Russian debut performing with Kremlin Chamber Orchestra at Grand Hall of Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. In 2016 he made his German orchestra debut performing with both Jülich Sinfonieorchester and Junges Sinfonieorchester Aachen. In 2015 he had his Asia debut, playing with Hong Kong Symphonia at City Hall Concert Hall; In 2014 he had his American debut playing with Orquestra Sinfónica Espírito Santo in Vitória – Brazil; In 2013 Vasco made his Portuguese orchestra debut with Porto Symphony Orchestra (Casa da Música); In 2011 Vasco made his piano recital debut at Sala Suggia of Porto Casa da Música, opening the EDP Piano Cycle 2011.

He has also performed solo with orchestras including Clássica da Madeira, Clássica do Centro, Clássica do Sul, Festival de Música Júnior, Filarmónica Portuguesa, Filarmónica das Beiras, Gulbenkian, Jovem Orquestra Portuguesa, Orquestra do Norte, Orquestra Promenade, Sem Fronteiras, Sinfónica de Cascais, Sinfónica Portuguesa, and has worked with well-known conductors, such as, Choi Sown Le, Daniel Cohen, Dinis Sousa, Günter Neuhold, Jan Wierzba, Joshua dos Santos, Martim Sousa Tavares, Martin André, Misha Rachlevsky, Nicholas Kok, Nikolay Lalov, Nuno Coelho, Osvaldo Ferreira, Pedro Carneiro, Pedro Neves, Peter Sauerwein, Rui Pinheiro, Vassily Sinaisky e Victor Hugo Toro.

Vasco performed live for the first time on Portuguese National Television (RTP1) when he was six years old. On the same year he made his first public appearance at the Porto Tram Museum, selected for his virtuosity among the students of the Estrelita Yamaha Music School in Porto where he had started learning the piano at age of 4. In 2000 he was admitted with honours at Porto Music Conservatory, where he studied with Rosgard Lingardson. In 2010 he concluded his studies with the highest mark. Since the age of 7, Vasco has also studied the violin, working with José Paulo Jesus. He achieved distinction as a violinist at the Momentum Perpetuum Orchestra directed by the British conductor Martin André, at the “Official Youth Orchestra of Portuguese Music Conservatories” (OJCOM) and as concertmaster at the Lisbon Metropolitan Young Orchestra.Vasco has actively participated in a great number of piano masterclasses with many well-known professors such as Alvaro Teixeira Lopes, Andrew Ball, Artur Pizarro, Betty Haag-Kuhnke, Boris Berman, Cristina Ortiz, Dmitri Alexeev, Fausto Neves, Ian Jones, Ivo Cruz, John Lill, Luiz de Moura Castro, Martin André, Mats Widlund, Murray McLachlan, Nina Tichman, Paul Badura-Skoda, Pedro Burmester, Peter Donohoe, Philippe Cassard, Sergei Covalenco, Vanessa Latarche and Yuri Bogdanov.

Vasco has performed in hundreds of musical events in a series of renowned auditoriums of 5 different continents, including Austrália, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, China, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Kosovo, Malta, Morocco, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, UK and USA such as: Tsarytsino Museum and Grand Hall of Tchaikovsky Conservatory (Moscow), Chinese Cultural Centre, Institut of Contemporary Arts and Steinway Piano Gallery (Singapore), Princess Galyani Vadhana Institut of Music (Thailand), London Steinway Hall, Whiteley Hall, Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall, Regent’s Hall and Pallant House Gallery (UK); Hong Kong City Hall (China); Teatro Carlos Gomes and Teatro Municipal de Barueri (Brasil); SchumannHaus Bonn, Eurogress Aachen, Düren Schloss Burgau (Germany); Stockholm Royal Palace and Stockholm Royal College of Music (Suécia); Teatro de San Agustin e Auditório Caixa Nova de Vigo (Espanha); Casa da Música, CCB, Europarque, Gulbenkian Foundation, Palácio da Pena, Palácio Nacional de Queluz, Grémio Literário de Lisboa, Ateneu Comercial do Porto, Teatro Helena Sá e Costa, Teatro Micaelense, Teatro Baltazar Dias, Mosteiro de Alcobaça, Museu Romântico do Porto and Salão Árabe do Palácio da Bolsa (Portugal).

In the area of pedagogy Vasco has been invited as University Lecturer, he has got a Master’s degree in Music Teaching by Aveiro University, the diploma “Art of Teaching” by London Royal College of Music. He has got a limited number of private pupils and is often invited to teach in masterclasses and festivals. He is regularly invited as a jury member of several international piano competitions.

He has been invited to record for Antena 2, ARS Produktion, Galician Radio, MPMP and KNS Classical. His albums include: Promenade (2015), Golden Liszt (2016), Freitas Branco | Sonatas (2020, nominated for Best Classical Music Album by Prémios Play 2021), Poetic Scenes (2020, nominated for Best Artist of the ), which are available online and were broadcasted by Antena 2 and the german radios MDR Klassik and WDR 3. Vasco is supported by AVA Musical Editions

Gülsin Onay

Gülsin Onay began playing the piano at the age of three, and gave her first public recital on Turkish Radio when she was six. With the aid of a special state scholarship she studied with Ahmed Adnan Saygun and Mithat Fenmen, and then in Paris, where her teachers includes Pierre Sancan, Monique Haas and Nadia Boulanger.. She graduated from the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 16, winning the prestigious “Premier Prix du Piano”, and prizes in top international competitions, including the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud (in Paris) and the Ferruccio Busoni (in Bolzano), quickly followed. Gülsin Onay’s subsequent, truly international career has spanned 80 countries across all continents, from Venezuela to Japan. She has given concerts in the major musical centres of the world such as Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, the Vienna Konzerthaus, London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall and Wigmore Hall, the Salle Gaveau in Paris, the Washington DC National Gallery of Art and the New York Miller Theater. She has performed as a soloist with such leading orchestras as Dresden Staatskapelle, Philharmonia Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic, Japan Philharmonic, Munich Radio Symphony, St Petersburg Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic and Vienna Symphony Orchestras. Conductors with which she has performed include Vladimir Ashkenazy, Erich Bergel, Michael Boder, Andrey Boreyko, Jorg Faerber, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Edward Gardner, Neeme Jarvi, Emmanuel Krivine, Ingo Metzmacher, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jose Serebrier, Vassily Sinaisky, Stanislaw Wislocki and Lothar Zagrosek. Gülsin Onay’s many festival appearances include Berlin, Warsaw, Granada, Mozartfest Würzburg, Newport, Schleswig-Holstein, Singapore, Ohrid, Azores and Istanbul. Chamber music artists she has played with include Antonio Meneses, Kirill Troussov, Maxim Vengerov, and the Endellion Quartet.

Gülsin Onay is acknowledged worldwide as the definitive interpreter of the music of Ahmed Adnan Saygun, the leading Turkish composer of the 20th century, whose works feature prominently in her concerts and recordings, and whose 2nd Piano Concerto (which she premiered in Turkey and abroad) was dedicated to her. Other contemporary composers who have dedicated works to Gülsin Onay are Hubert Stuppner, Denis Dufour, Jean-Louis Petit, Muhiddin Dürrüoğlu-Demiriz, Marc-André Hamelin and Bujor Hoinic.

Gülsin Onay’s over 20 recorded albums to date illustrate the breadth of her repertoire as well as her interpretive power, with solo works and concertos from Haydn and Mozart to the contemporary era. Her 2007 CD featuring live concert recordings of Tchaikovsky’s 1st and Rachmaninov’s 3rd Piano Concerto has been acclaimed by critics and virtuosi alike. In 2008 CPO released her recording of both Saygun concertos, to widespread critical acclaim. For the 250 anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, Gülsin Onay has recorded 2 CDs of the composer’s works. Her latest release, of the piano concertos by Ulvi Cemal Erkin and Khachaturian, received wide critical praise. Many of her concerts have been broadcast on European radio and television, and in the USA on National Public Radio. During the 2020–2021 coronavirus pandemic, Gülsin Onay was a regular performer on social media, where her livestreamed concerts received several million views.

Gülsin Onay holds the title of State Artist in her native Turkey, where for many years she has been official soloist for the Presidential Symphony Orchestra in Ankara. She is “Artist in Residence” at Bilkent University in Ankara and holds honorary doctoral degrees from Bosphorus University in Istanbul, and from Hacettepe University in Ankara. In 2007 she was honoured with the award of a State Medal by the Polish nation for her interpretation of the music of Chopin. The same year, the “Sevda-Cenap And” Music Foundation awarded her its prestigious 2007 Honorary Award Gold Medal. Gülsin Onay was named “Pianist of the Year” in the 2011 Donizetti Classical Music Awards. In 2014 she was awarded the Honorary Medal of the 42nd Istanbul Music Festival, and later Honorary Medal from the Bodrum Music Festival in 2018. Starting in 2015, the Turkish city of Tekirdağ, one of whose streets has been named after Gülsin Onay, has organised a annual concert series “Gülsin Onay Piano Days” in her honour.

Outside of her professional performing career, Gülsin Onay has been a tireless promoter of classical music, through her charitable activities, event organisation, teaching and broadcasting. Since 2003 she has been a “Goodwill Ambassador” for UNICEF, and regularly gives charity concerts to support and publicise their activities. She has been the Artistic Advisor of the International Gümüşlük Classical Music Festival and Academy since its foundation in 2004. Gülsin Onay takes a particularly interest in nurturing the development of young musicians, and has taught over 400 pupils. Gülsin Onay is a regular contributor to radio and television arts programmes, and since 2017 she has hosted her own weekly programme “In the Studio with Gülsin Onay” on Turkish national radio.