Guest Artists

Conductors
· Joel Smirnoff
· Tomasz Golka
· Robert Moody

Composers
· Behzad Ranjbaran
· Brad Sayles

Soloists
· Simone Dinnerstein
· Adam Golka
· Michael Zuraw

Adam Golka, Pianist

22-year-old pianist Adam Golka is the winner of two of America's most prestigious musical awards: the 2008 Gilmore Young Artist Award, and most recently the 2009 Max I. Allen Classical Fellowship Award of the American Pianists Association.

Golka has performed well over 200 concerts since he took the first prize in the 2nd China Shanghai International Piano Competition at age 16 in 2003. He has performed with such exceptional orchestras as the symphonies of Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, San Diego, Fort Worth, Syracuse, and Grand Rapids, in the United States, as well as the BBC Scottish Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa), Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra, Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, the Shanghai Philharmonic, Orchestre Poitou-Charentes, Orquesta Filarmonica de Jalisco (Guadalajara), and Sinfonia Varsovia. He has collaborated with such eminent conductors as Donald Runnicles and Miguel Harth-Bedoya, who have regularly re-engaged Adam over the past seasons, as well as Pinchas Zukerman, Michael Christie, Andreas Delfs, Edwin Outwater, David Lockington, Daniel Hege, Julian Kuerti, Michael Morgan, Timothy Muffitt, and his brother, conductor Tomasz Golka.

Golka's solo and chamber music appearances have taken him to famous venues such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall) in New York, Nakanoshima Hall in Osaka, the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, and prestigious festivals such as the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, the Ravinia Festival, Music@Menlo, the New York City International Keyboard Festival at Mannes, the Newport Music Festival, and the Duszniki-Chopin festival. In 2006, Adam gave his first performance of the cycle of Beethoven's complete 32 piano sonatas; he continues to devote much time to working on these sonatas and plans to renew his interpretations of the cycle in future stages of his career.

Adam will be making his Isaac Stern Auditorium Debut at Carnegie Hall next March playing Rachmaninoff's Third Concerto with the New York Youth Symphony. Other highlights of Adam's 2009-2010 season include concertos of Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and Rachmaninoff, with the Warsaw Philharmonic and the Phoenix, Knoxville, Fort Worth, and South Dakota Symphonies. Adam will also be premiering esteemed American composer Richard Danielpour's Piano Fantasy (2008), commissioned by the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival for Adam, in various recitals around the country, as well as in a Toyko debut recital.

A 1st generation American, Golka owes his unique background to his parents, Polish musicians who fled Communist-controlled Poland in the 1980's in search of a better life. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Golka moved to Fort Worth, Texas, when he was 15 years-old, in order to pursue devoted studies with his much admired teacher and mentor, Jose Feghali. While studying with Mr. Feghali, Adam completed an Artist Diploma in Piano at Texas Christian University. Currently, Adam resides in Baltimore, Maryland, where he is studying with the legendary Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Institute. Adam previously worked with Maestro Fleisher at a special workshop devoted to Beethoven's Sonatas at Carnegie Hall, and at the Steans Institute for Young Artists at Ravinia, which he participated in for two summers.

Adam's previous teachers include Dariusz Pawlas, in Houston, as well as his mother and first teacher, Anna Golka. He also regards with great importance lessons he has received from incredible artists such as Claude Frank, Miriam Fried, Gilbert Kalish, Jon Kimura Parker, Menahem Pressler, and John Shirley-Quirk, among others.

Links: www.adamgolka.com/