Helena Ha-Young Sul
Founder/Artistic director
Jury Online Semifinal
Jury 9-10 september
Helena Ha-Young Sul, a dedicated and established concert pianist and teacher/coach, is regularly invited as a jury member and teacher in master classes and piano competitions nationally and internationally.
The Swedish-born concert pianist Helena Ha-Young Sul has her roots in Korea and Japan.
Her passion for organizing events and activities for young musicians has established events including the Gothenburg Piano Festival in Sweden and institutions. As artistic director, she often invites musicians from all over the world.
Her first official performance, at the age of 7, she won first prize at the Steinway International Piano Competition in Hamburg, Germany.
Helena has over 30 years of experience as a solo pianist and chamber musician, she has performed in Sweden, Denmark, other concerts have been given in Israel, Germany, France, Switzerland, USA, China and South Korea. Most recently there have been successful solo concerts in Montenegro and Budapest.
As a sought-after coach and educator, she also travels to various summer courses and universities to teach masterclasses. She works as a teacher in Gothenburg. Other major interests are interior design and art.
Since 2010, she is the founder and artistic director of the Gothenburg Piano Festival/ international piano competition which supports young pianists.
For more information: www.hayoungsulpianist.com
PROFESSOR CHRISTOPHER ELTON
Christopher Elton was born in Edinburgh and received most of his musical training at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he achieved the unusual distinction of receiving the Academy's highest achievement award - the Dip. RAM - on both piano and 'cello.
Christopher Elton's international recognition has come as a result of the many successes of his students - mostly at the Royal Academy of Music. Many have won international awards, including the gold medal at the Cliburn (where last year Anna Geniushene won the Silver Medal award. Other first prizes are the London "World", "Top of The World", Shenzen International Piano and Montreal International Piano As well as competitions such as Jaen, Newport , Dudley and New Orleans Further success has come with five prize winners in the relatively recent Leeds International Piano Competitions as well as in the Tchaikovsky, Leipzig Bach, Dublin, Shanghai and Taiwan Competitions and many other Students have also been successful in the prestigious Young Concert Artists award in New York, as well as in the London Young Concert Artists Trust Many of his students are now recording artists, including Freddy Kempf, Yevgeny Sudbin, Joanna MacGregor, Inon Barnatan and Benjamin Grosvenor.
While his priority has long been his work at the Royal Academy, London, Christopher Elton recently accepted an invitation to join the piano faculty at the Yale School of Music as Visiting Professor for the second semester of 2017/2018. He has also been in great demand abroad both as a teacher and as a jury member for international competitions. In recent years, he has given masterclasses in the United States, Japan, Israel, Korea, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Spain, Germany and Ireland and Vietnam, many of them for important conservatories or universities. He has also been a member of the jury at many important international competitions - The Cliburn, Moscow (Tchaikovsky), Dublin, Leeds, Busoni (Bolzano), Rubinstein. Vienna Beethoven, Shenzen and China International to name but a few. He has also given concerts in the UK, USA, Ireland, Spain, Australia and Vietnam.
He was a prizewinner in several British and international piano competitions, performing and broadcasting regularly both as a soloist and in chamber music. At the same time, he worked as a freelance cellist with the major London orchestras.
Christopher Elton was head of keyboards at the Royal Academy of Music in London (where he was elected a fellow in 1983) from 1987 to 2011. In 2002 he was awarded the title of professor at the University of London. He now also holds the title of Emeritus Director of Piano, and still has a large class of students at the Royal Academy of Music.
Christopher Elton
Jury September 9-10
Masterclass September 10
Galina Ehrngren studied at the conservatory in St. Petersburg with prof. N. Golubovskaya. She has experience teaching piano in both St. Petersburg and Stockholm. Principal of Maestro Academy.
She is the author of several textbooks with a focus on piano methodology. Among other things, a textbook for beginners "Pianoresan" which is a combination of Russian classical piano school and newer teaching methods such as practical harmony and aural teaching as well as various forms of music making such as improvisation. The book has been used in Sweden since 2005.
Galina Ehrngren is the founder and artistic director of the Stockholm International Music Competition (SIMC). She has received the Mai von Rosens Piano Teacher Award 2020 which is awarded by the Royal Academy of Music.
Galina Ehrngren
Jury September 9-10
Masterclass September 10
Aisa Ijiri is Concert Pianist, Steinway Artist, Producer and Artistic Director of the Tokyo International
Piano Association (TIPA) and the Montecatini International Piano Competition.
Following her sensational debut recitals at the Tokyo Opera City (2010), the Carnegie Hall in New
York (2017) and the Royal Albert Hall in London (2021), Aisa has established herself as one of the
award-winning concert pianists and has been described as, “a special talent whose European
sophistication, fierce passion and poetic sentiment create an artistic atmosphere”- Record Geijutsu,
Tokyo.
Born in Kyoto in Japan, Aisa made her European debut at the age of 15 as a concerto soloist at the
Philharmonic Hall, Warsaw and as a recitalist at the Konserthuset, Stockholm.
Aisa Ijira
Jury Online Semifinal
Niklas Sivelöv
Jury September 9-10
As one of the leading Scandinavian pianists, award-winning pianist and composer Niklas Sivelöv has taken his career to new international heights with an extensive catalog of recordings for labels such as BIS, Caprice, Dacapo, Naxos, Toccata Classics and AMC Classical, some of which have been awarded Diapason d'or, CHOK and Penguin Rosette. His concert career spans four continents, including venues such as the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Barbican, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Tivoli Copenhagen and Atheneum in Bucharest.
He has won critical acclaim and enchanted audiences with his artistic temperament, impeccable technique and spellbinding stage presence.
His broad concert repertoire spans Bach to Skryabin, Scandinavian composers and beyond, and includes around 50 piano concertos, including six of his own. As a composer, his catalog of works includes six symphonies, 24 preludes for piano and several chamber music pieces.
Niklas Sivelöv is also a prominent improviser, with several successful recordings and collaborations: the CD Improvisational 1 was a sensational success at The Independent Music Awards, where he was the first Scandinavian to win the award for best classical album and received the People's Choice Award.
Among the leading orchestras with which Niklas Sivelöv has performed are the Stockholm Philharmonic, Zurich Tonhalle, Suisse Romande (Genève) and the Prague Radio Symphony under the direction of many distinguished conductors, among them Alan Gilbert, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Kristjan Järvi, Sakari Oramo, Mario Venzago Jukka -Pekka Saraste , Grzegorz Nowak, Janos Fürst and Leif Segerstam Among the instrumentalists with whom he has performed are the Swedish clarinetist Martin Fröst, cellist Leonid Gorokhov, flutist Patrick Gallois and violinist Zakhar Bron.
Niklas Sivelöv grew up in Skellefteå in northern Sweden, where he started playing the organ at the age of six; his first compositions followed soon after. He played by ear until he was 14, when he took traditional piano lessons and learned to read sheet music. He studied with, among others, Gabriel Amiras and Maria Curcio Diamond, students of the famous Heinrich Neuhaus and Artur Schnabel.
He lives in Malmö and is a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. His book on the art of piano playing, distilled from a lifetime of performance and study, was published in 2018. He was recently knighted by the Queen of Denmark as a Knight of the Order of Dannebrog.
He is a piano professor at SUDIGO in Zabok and executive and artistic director of the artistic organization Cristoforium, which organizes top-class concert series in Croatia and abroad and a variety of other important cultural and educational content.
Danijel Gašparović is the CEO and founder of the artist management and cultural services company CristoforiumArt which represents some of the most respected local and international artists such as Julian Rachlin, Roman Simovic, Milos, Andrey Gugnin and others and organizes a number of respectable cultural events in collaboration with partners from Croatia and abroad as well as providing various services in culture.
He was a jury member in the Santa Cecillia International Piano Competition in Porto, WPTA IPC Spain in Madrid, Oskar Rieding IPC in Slovenia, New Generation IPC&Festival in
Moscow, Grand Piano in the Palace Festival&IPC in St. Petersburg and many others. He serves as a board member of the national board of the competition in Croatia.
Danijel Gašparović is the president of the World Piano Teachers Association Croatia and the artistic and executive director of the Kašman Festival in Mali Lošinj.
Together with his father, he is the owner of the largest and most valuable private collection of historic pianos in the south-eastern part of Europe - Gašparović's Piano Collection.
Danijel Gasparovic
Jury September 9-10
Herdis Ágústa Linnet
Herdís Ágústa Linnet (1998) tog kandidatexamen i klassiskt pianospel från Kungliga Musikhögskolan i Stockholm, våren 2022 och går nu sin masterutbildning på samma skola. Herdís var del av Islands symfoniorkesterns Ungdomsorkester i flera år, där hon spelade både trumpet och piano/celesta. Herdís har sjungit som medlem i Harmrahlid kören med artisten Björk Guðmundsdóttir i New York som del av hennes show Cornucopia. Herdís har kommit fram som pianist med Kongl. Teknologkören i Stockholm, spelat orgel och piano med Hamrahlid-kören och uppfört nyskrivna stycken av unga kompositörer, både på Island och i Sverige. Herdís har även studerat jazzpiano och komponerat musik för kör, samt arrangerat isländsk folkmusik. Herdís har genom åren tilldelats några utmärkelser på festivalen Nótan på Island, som pianosolist och trumpet kammarmusiker.
Herdi Àgùsta Linnet
Jury Online Semifinal
Patrick Jovell
Jury Online Semi-final
Jury September 9-10
Master class September 10
Patrick Jovell is former chairman, now honorary member of the Swedish Piano Teacher Association (EPTA - Sweden).
Educated at music schools in Sweden, the USA and France, he has given concerts as both soloist and chamber musician in fifteen countries and i.a. participated in Swedish Television, Swedish Radio and Italian RAI.
As an educator, he has worked as a university lecturer and associate professor at the academies of music in Gothenburg, Sweden and Tilburg, the Netherlands. Jovell's students have received prizes at Swedish and international piano competitions.
As a lecturer and masterclass holder, he has recently been invited to festivals, conferences and other forums in Sweden, Italy, Iceland, Estonia, Poland, Serbia and the USA.
Jovell contributes regularly as a writer and editor for EPTA Sweden Magazine, Piano Street Magazine and The World of Piano Competitions magazine. In this capacity, he has also been commissioned by the Chopin Institute in Warsaw.
As an innovator and pianist, Patrick Jovell collaborated with a number of filmmakers in the project "Swedish piano films", which led to a nomination by the Swedish Film Institute to compete at the international film festival in Venice.
He holds workshops on various topics, from Alexander Scriabin's color hearing (synesthesia) to today's ongoing digitization of music education.
Jovell is a former board member of the Swedish Music Council - the national committee for The International Music Council (IMC/UNESCO). He has enjoyed support from the Royal Academy of Music, the Swedish Institute, the Wallenberg Foundation and as a French state scholarship holder.
Website:www.patrickjovell.com