Clara Biermasz

The Dutch-born pianist Clara Biermasz received her musical training in the classes of Prof. Alexander Warenberg and Prof. Klára Würtz at the Academy of the Arts in Utrecht, the Netherlands. She completed her bachelor studies in 2004 and then studied in the classes of Prof. Balázs Szokolay and Prof. Balázs Réti at the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest, Hungary, and in the class of Prof. Michael Hruby at the University of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna. She completed her M.A. with distinction in 2012.

Clara has attended master classes held by Itamar Golan, Jan Wijn, Alan Weiss, Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden, Martijn van den Hoek, Gergely Bogányi, Istvan Gulyás and Paolo Giacometti.

She is an award-winner at many international competitions, including the first prize (VSB Prize) and the Youth Jury Prize at the Princess Christina Competition in the Netherlands (1996), the first prize in the category of chamber music and ‘Primo Premio Assoluto’ – the overall winner in all categories (respectively in duo with Ádám Jávorkai) at the international competition ‘Premio Città di Padova’, Italy (2008). In 2008, Clara was also a prize-winner at the ‘18th International Chamber Music Competition Thessaloniki’ in Greece.

Clara has held concerts at the following venues: in the Vienna Konzerthaus, at the Beethoven Festival Wien, at the Chopin Festival in Gaming (Austria), as well as at such prestigious places as the Palazzo Leoni Montanari, Vicenza, the Palazzo Albrizzi in Venice, the Palazzo Zacco-Armeni in Padua (Italy), the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, the National Theatre in Miskolc (Hungary), the Dutch Embassy in Vienna, the Dutch Embassy in Cairo (Egypt), the Dutch Embassy in Muscat (Oman), the Bogense Summer Festival (Denmark), the Festival Peinture en Musique (France), Vredenburg in Utrecht, de Doelen in Rotterdam, the Muziekcentrum Frits Philips, Eindhoven, the Hermitage Amsterdam (Holland) and at festivals like the Cello Festival in Dordrecht and the ‘Settimane musicali al Teatro Olimpico’, Vicenza, as well as the Kodály Society Wales, where she also has held master classes.

She has made several recordings for international radio and television stations, among others for ATV and ORF (Austria).

In 2013, she made her first CD with sonatas for cello and piano by Brahms and Grieg for the austrian label Gramola (Gramola 99034).

This CD was sponsored by ARP and Blüthner.

Clara Biermasz has been the scholarship-holder of different cultural funds in the Netherlands such as the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Stichting Willem Mengelberg Fonds, Stichting Fonds voor de Geld- en Effectenhandel, Stichting A.F.V.O.M.S., Stichting Niemeijer Fonds and Stichting Vreedefonds.

‘… An exceptional talent with great technical skills …’ (International Federation of Chopin Societies and the International Chopin Society in Vienna, 2011) ‘Her wonderfully clear narrative tone simply made us forget everyday concerns …’ (Wiener Chopin-Blätter, 2012)

‘The solo pieces she played-impressionist poems in music by Debussy and one of Chopin’s Nocturnes-were a testament to the talent that has won Clara many international prizes…’ (Times of Oman, 2014)

‘Two exceptional talents with brilliant technical and refined interpretative skills’ – Padova Cultura on the Duo Jávorkai & Biermasz (2008)

For more info visit http://yyaayy.com/

Elena Piccione

Italian piano player, Elena Piccione started playing the piano at seven years old under the direction of Stefania Tigossi. She distinguished and encouraged Elena’s ability and in that same year she started performing both solo repertoire and chamber music.

Child wonder, at twelve years old Elena provided for her first solo recital and after one year she entered the Conservatorio di Musica “N. Paganini” in Genoa, to begin an execution degree. Elena’s advancement was quickened and at eighteen years old she graduated with a Master’s Degree in Pianoforte.

She has performed in numerous imperative venues and celebrations in Italy and Europe. They incorporate Lucca Chamber Music Festival, Journée Mondiale de la Philosophie at UNESCO 2005, Lions International, Camogli Festival, Alassio Festival, A.gi.mus., Soirée Musicale in Rovereto, Stresa International Music Festival “Dino Ciani” , “Dino Ciani” Concerts in Milan, in a joint effort with the Venice Biennale. She has performed at the Full Moon Concerts at the WMDC in Rotterdam, Dag van de Romantische Muziek at Rotterdam Erasmus Park and at the Universitat Mozarteum in Salzburg.

Since 2010 Elena has contemplated with Giovanni Alvino who is both pianist and pedagogue. Additionally she brought masterclass with the extraordinary musician Andrei Gavrilov.

Elena’s broad collection, going from baroque to contemporary music, incorporates the complete mazurkas, waltzes and improptus by Chopin, the complete piano trios and piano sonatas by Mozart, incredible fills in and additionally rarities by Russian composers.

She also plays in duo with the pianist Giovanni Alvin.

For more info visit http://yyaayy.com/

Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker, nicknamed “Yardbird” (“Bird” for short), a saxophone player, had an undistinguished early carrier but ended up being one of the creators of bebop jazz in the 1940s.

He was born in Kansas City, Kansas, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, the only child of Charles and Addie Parker. His father, Charles, a pianist, had influenced and inspired him to go into music.

At public schools, he discovered his own talent for music. He started playing baritone horn in the school band.

At the early age of 15, he began to practice playing saxophone diligently wherein he mastered improvisation and developed new ideas that led to bebop, a form of jazz with fast tempo.

In 1938, Parker together with his first band, toured nightclubs and other venues of the southwest, as well as Chicago and New York City. Parker had a morphine addiction while in hospital after automobile accident and was also addicted to heroin.

In the following year, he worked as a professional musician in New York who was then featured as a regular performer at a Chicago night club after a year. His New York experience was tough that he was at first forced to wash dishes in order to get by.

His humble beginnings were paid off when he was known and recognized for his musical invention, the bebop.

Parker died on March 12, 1955 from lobar pneumonia and a bleeding ulcer but Parker also had an advanced case of cirrhosis and had suffered a heart attack.

Robert Alexander Schumann

A composer with mental illness.

Schumann became a composer because he failed as a pianist. The 1830s were the dawn of a new kind of piano virtuosity, exemplified by Chopin and Liszt. Schumann was eager to make his mark, and to try to speed up the process he constructed a weird device using a cigar box and some wire. It was intended to prop up his fingers while practicing, the idea being to strengthen them and develop independence. But instead, two fingers on his right hand were permanently injured. Schumann informed his family, who had only grudgingly given their approval to his intended career as a musician, that instead of now becoming a lawyer — which is what he promised to do if a piano career failed — he was going to focus on writing music.

Schumann spent the last two years of his life in a mental asylum. But he had voluntarily committed himself and early on, to a considerable extent, he recovered. Being discharged was an option that didn’t seem to occur to him. He didn’t feel cured. He hated where he was being held and repeatedly asked friends and family to have him transferred somewhere else. Schumann was convinced that he was misunderstood by the physicians who were supposed to cure him — and there is evidence to support his claim.

From 1850 to 1854, Schumann composed in a wide variety of genres. Critics have disputed the quality of his work at this time; a widely held view has been that his music showed signs of mental breakdown and creative decay. More recently, critics have suggested that the changes in style may be explained by “lucid experimentation”. In late February 1854, Schumann’s symptoms increased, the angelic visions sometimes being replaced by demonic visions. He warned Clara (his wife) that he feared he might do her harm. On 27 February 1854, he attempted suicide by throwing himself from a bridge into the Rhine River. Rescued by boatmen and taken home, he asked to be taken to an asylum for the insane.

While in the asylum, Schumann was not encouraged to write music; it was regarded as harmful. But he was very interested in what he had composed shortly before becoming a patient, and asked others whether the music had yet been published and what the public reaction had been. One of those recent pieces was the Gesänge der Frühe (Songs of Dawn) Op. 133 from 1853. They were his last works for solo piano. Not long after writing them, Schumann had the nervous breakdown which led to his institutionalization. Unlike most of his piano music, these fit awkwardly under the hands, and transitioning between musical passages can sound clumsy. The first of the five-piece set is majestic and hymn-like.