Pianist Tamás Ungár has earned worldwide acclaim for his powerful performances and innovative programming. A regular guest artist at numerous music centers in the United States , he also performs and teaches frequently all over the globe. Between the 1997-99 seasons he performed over 70 concerts in America , Australia , Brazil , Colombia , Hungary , Romania , England , Taiwan , Hong Kong, The People’s Republic of China, Korea and Japan . Some of the highlights of recent seasons include performances with the Sacramento Symphony Orchestra, performing as soloist/conductor of Mozart Piano Concertos at the University of Leeds , as Artist-in-Residence and a return visit to present a solo recital and master class series at the Liszt Academy in Budapest . In addition to his performing commitments, Tamás Ungár has become one of United States ’ best-known and most respected teachers of the piano. As Founder - Executive Director of PianoTexas International academy & Festiva and member of the TCU Piano Faculty, he attracts students from across America and as far afield as Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, China, England, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Kazakstan, Korea, Hungary, Japan, Malaya, Mexico, Poland, Republic of Georgia, Singapore, Russia and Taiwan. His students have received prizes in national and international competitions, have performed in prestigious music centers including Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Recital Hall, New York City and have made numerous recordings. For the Eleventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, three of his students were invited to participate, an achievement reserved for very few teachers. Since 1989 Tamás Ungár has been a regular guest teacher at the most important music centers in China and in 2006 he was appointed as Artistic Director of the China Conservatory International Piano Festival in Bejing. Dr. Ungár’s most influential teachers included Alexander Sverjensky at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Lajos Hernádi at the Liszt Academy in Budapest and György Sebök at Indiana University , where he was awarded the Doctorate in Music. Prior to his present position he taught at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the Purcell School, England and at the University of California at San Diego . Tamás Ungár records exclusively for CALA Records.

Jane Coop is one of Canada’s most prominent and celebrated artists, has had a remarkable career spanning some thirty years. She has toured extensively throughout North America, Russia, China and Japan as recitalist and concerto soloist and chamber musician and continues to be invited to international festivals on a regular basis. Her serious and sophisticate musicianship with her direct and passionate communication with the listeners has earned her warmhearted response. Her tone is warm, her technique flawless, her temperament poetic. Her repertoire is extensive, ranging from Bach to present time composers. No less than three of her 15 recordings have won the Juno Awards, especially the Complete Beethoven Sonatas for Piano and Violin. Her principal teachers were Anton Kuerti and Leon Fleisher. She is a regular artist-faculty member of the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival and is Head of the UBC School of Music.

Christopher Elton was born in Edinburgh and received most of his musical education at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he achieved the unusual distinction of gaining the Academy’s highest performing award - the Dip. RAM - on both piano and ‘cello. He was a prizewinner in several British and international piano competitions and continued his studies with Maria Curcio-Diamand, playing 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’s international recognition has come as a result of the many successes of his students at the Royal Academy of Music. Many have won international awards, including first prizes in the Van Cliburn and London “World” International Piano Competitions as well as in Jaen, Newport, Dudley and New Orleans. One of his students has been a prizewinner in each of the past three Leeds International Piano Competitons. Further recent successes came in the finals of the Leipzig Bach, Tchaikovsky, Dublin, Shanghai, Taiwan and Munich (ARD) Competitions as well as previous major awards in the international competitions in Santander, Geneva (CIEM), Geza Anda, Pozzoli, Mazaro del Vallo, Porto, Madrid, Ettlingen and the Stravinsky Awards in the USA. (One of his students has been a prizewinner in each of the last three Leeds International Piano Competitions.) 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. While his priority is to his work at the Royal Academy, London, Christopher Elton has also been much in demand overseas both as a teacher and as a jury member for international competitions.Within the last few years he has given masterclasses in the USA, 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 jury member at competitions in Moscow (Tchaikovsky), China International, Dublin, Vienna Beethoven, Germany, Japan, Roumania, Taiwan, the USA and Ireland as well as in the UK. During recent years he has also given recitals in the UK, USA, Ireland, Spain, Australia and Vietnam. Christopher Elton is currently Head of Keyboard at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where he was elected a Fellow in 1983. In 2002 the title of Professor of the University of London was conferred on him.

At the age of 13 he was already accepted as a student at the Hanover University of Music and Drama, where he studied Piano with Prof. Karl-Heinz Kämmerling until obtaining his Concert Soloist’s Diploma in 1975. Another important phase in his development as a pianist was his long association (1969 to 1977) with Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, who regarded him as his last pupil. He also participated in Beethoven courses given by Wilhelm Kempff and Claudio Arrau. Bernd Goetzke was awarded prizes in several international competitions (Paris, Milan, Brussels, Athens, Epinal amongst others). Already at the age of 25 he was appointed Lecturer at the Hanover University of Music and Drama and became professor in 1982. Today Bernd Goetzke is one of Germany’s most sought-after teachers and musicians. He teaches a class of young pianists from all over the world, and many of them have become prize winners in international competitions. He is the Head of the Concert Soloist Programme in Hanover and in addition he holds numerous Master Classes in Germany and worldwide. He is also a jury member of many international competitions (Moscow, Warsaw, Munich, Bolzano, Orléans, Oslo, London, St. Petersburg, Kharkov, Salt Lake City, Hilton Head, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Sendai and many others). In his concert repertoire the names Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn, Beethoven, Schumann and Debussy appear frequently, but also works of the twentieth century, reflecting his fascination with the stylistic richness and diversity of the period between Late Romanticism and Avantgarde. Here one could mention the complete Preludes by Olivier Messiaen or, in the realm of chamber music and concerto repertoire, Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time“, Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire“, Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, the German première of Bartók’s Piano Quintet, the two Rhapsodies by Gershwin or Skryabin’s “Prometheus”. Bernd Goetzke has also published several articles on subject-related matters including “Freedom in Interpretation“, “Bach’s Melodic Characteristics“, “Articulation and Phrasing in Classical Music“, etc.

Solomon Mikowsky has been praised as being “one of the world’s most sought-after artist teachers” (Clavier) and having “a magical ability to develop his piano students into artists” (Sur Exprès). His pupils have won over 100 top prizes in some of the most important international competitions, including the Gilmore Artist Award and first prizes in the Rubinstein (Tel-Aviv), Santander, Beethoven (Bonn), Iturbi (Valencia), Maria Canals (Barcelona), Pilar Bayona (Zaragoza), Jaén, Andorra, Panama and New Orleans, and other top prizes in the Tchaikovsky, Dublin, Sviatoslav Richter (Moscow), Vianna da Motta (Lisbon), Porto, Villa del Mar (Chile), Cleveland, Montreal and E-Competition (Minneapolis). His pupils have performed as soloists with the Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Berlin, Bucharest, Budapest, Jerusalem, Munich, St. Petersburg, and Stockholm symphony orchestras; the BBC, Berlin, London (Royal), Milan’s La Scala, Moscow, New York, Prague, Rotterdam, and Israel philharmonic orchestras; the Zürich Tonhalle; the Dresden Staatskappelle Orchestra and the national orchestras of Finland, France, Mexico and the Czech Republic, with such noted conductors as Comissiona, Dutoit, Ehrling, Eschenbach, Fischer, Frübeck de Burgos, Gielen, Graf, Herbig, Macal, Masur, Semkow, Skrowaczewski and Zinman. Mikowsky has served in the juries of some of the most important international piano competitions and has given master classes at the leading conservatories in Moscow, St.Petersburg, Warsaw, Krakow, Budapest, Salzburg, London, Paris, Rotterdam, Tel-Aviv,Jerusalem, and throughout Australia and the Far East. A Juilliard graduate with a doctorate from Columbia University, he studied with Gorodnitzki, the foremost pupil of the legendary Russian virtuoso Josef Lhevinne.

Andrey Pisarev was born in the Russian City of Rostov-on-Don in 1962. He began his Musical education in his home town at the age of seven. In 1978 he moved to Moscow to study at the Music School and then at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory of Music where he graduated in 1989 with M.A. Degree. Now he is professor at the Conservatory. In 1991, he won First Prize in the International Mozart Competition in Salzburg. That was the first time since 1956 to have awarded a First Prize. He also won First Prize in the Rachmaninov Competition and the UNISA International Piano Competition with several Special Prizes for the best performance of the classical Sonata and Mozart Concerto. Mr. Pisarev has a wide repertoire and feels at home when he performs Bach, Mozart, as well as Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninov and Debussy. Critics have acclaimed Pisarev for his “distinguished virtuosity, his impressive music, his transparent sound with bright colors as painted on a canvas.” His concerts have reached many countries on the five continents, and he is often invited to judge piano competitions and give masterclasses.

Dan-Wen Wei, a native of the People’s Republic of China, is hailed as one of the most outstanding musicians of his generation. His commanding technique and artistic temperament have resulted in his appearances as soloist with orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, The Seattle Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, the New York Chamber Symphony, the Augusta Symphony, symphony of the Americas, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Shanghai Symphony, the Shanghai Broadcasting Orchestra, the National Orchestra of China and the Singapore Symphony among many others. Mr. Wei’s has collaborated with conductors such as Gerard Schwarz, Raymond Leppard, Olaf Koch, Catherine Comet, Yong-Yan Hu, Lan Shui, and Marion Alsop. Mr. Wei made his critically acclaimed New York Debut in 1991, performing with the New York Philharmonic on the opening concert of the Mozart Bicentennial at Lincoln Center. His performance was broadcast internationally on PBS as part of the “Live From Lincoln Center” series. As a recitalist, Mr. Wei has performed in cities throughout the United States as well as in Germany, Austria, Italy, France, and Switzerland. Mr. Wei has performed in festivals such as the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, the Mostly Mozart festival in New York, the Beijing Music Festival, and the “Tuscan Sun Festival” in Cortona, Italy. Mr. Wei released a debut solo recording on the 3D Classics label which includes work by Liszt, Chopin and Schubert. His world-premiere recording of a concerto by Chinese composer Zhang Zhao was released by China Recording corp. in 2000. His second solo album “Love’s memory” which consists of short pieces by Tchaikovsky, Chopin, and Liszt was released in 2005 in China. Mr. Wei began his piano studies at the age of four, giving his first public concert at the age of nine. He entered the prestigious Central Conservatory of China at twelve and made his first European tour at age seventeen performing in Moscow, Odessa, Prague, and Sofia among other cities throughout Eastern Europe. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Mr. Wei was also very fortunate to be one of the last pupils of the legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz. Mr. Wei has been awarded prizes at numerous piano competitions including the Montreal International Piano Competition, the Robert Casadesus International Piano Competition, and the Marguerite Long International Piano Competition. A much sought-after teacher and a frequent adjudicator in China, Mr. Wei collaborated with Shenyang Conservatory of Music to create the International Music Education Center. He has been teaching there since the fall of 2003. Since then, many of his students have won top prizes in many competitions. A large number of his students have been accepted by some of the world’s top conservatories including the Juilliard School, The Curtis Institute of Music, Manhattan School of Music, the Royal College in London, and many others. Mr. Wei appears regularly in summer festivals such as the Berlin International Music Festival and Academy, the Perugia Music Fest, and the Beijing International Music Festival and Academy. In addition to being a teacher and a performer, Mr. Wei was the founder and artistic director of “International Concert Alliance, (ICA) a non-profit corporation dedicated to making classical music reach more people by presenting quality concert series as well as an annual Young People’s Piano Competition in New York area. ICA also presented “The Imperial Garden Concert Series” in the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing, China. Mr. Wei’s artistic personality has also resulted in him being featured in the Vanity Fair magazine as well as in the Book-”Evenings with Horowitz” by David Dubal.