Biography

Winner of the 2008 Gilmore Young Artist Award and the 2003 China Shanghai International Piano Competition, 21-year-old pianist Adam Golka has performed 200 concerts worldwide. He has performed such exceptional orchestras as the symphonies of Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Milwaukee, San Diego, Fort Worth, Grand Rapids, and Albany, as well as the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, the Shanghai Philharmonic, Orchestre Poitou-Charentes, Orquesta Filarmonica de Jalisco (Guadalajara), and Sinfonia Varsovia.

Golka's solo performances have taken him to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Nakanoshima Hall in Osaka, Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall) and Merkin Hall in New York, the Ravinia Rising Stars Series, the Gilmore Rising Stars Series, Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, Santa Fe Pro Musica, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts in Chicago, Hobby Center in Houston, Barge Music in Brooklyn, and the Gilmore, Music@Menlo, Newport and Duszniki-Chopin music festivals. Throughout 2006, Adam gave his first performance of Beethoven's complete 32 piano sonatas cycle in Fort Worth, in nine concerts, which were also viewed by hundreds via live internet webcasts.

Highlights from Adam's upcoming schedule include Mozart's Twenty-third Concerto with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa under Pinchas Zukerman (Candian Debut), Ravel's Left Hand Concerto with the BBC Scottish Symphony under Donald Runnicles (UK Debut), Rachmaninoff's Third Concerto with the Indianapolis Symphony, and concertos of Liszt, Schumann, Grieg, and Ravel with the Lansing, Riverside, Southeast Texas, Lubbock and Key West Symphonies. Adam will also be giving recitals at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival in New York City and a return recital at the Newport Music Festival, along with a performance of Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio in A Minor with acclaimed violinist Dmitri Sitkovetsky.

Equally at home as concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician, Golka's large repertoire encompasses all corners of the piano literature, from Bach to today's jazz-influenced Nicolai Kapustin, with a particular interest in forgotten masterworks, especially those by Russian romantic Nicolai Medtner. He enjoys talking to the audience in his concerts because he believes that communicating with the public can enhance the listening and overall experience of concerts.

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 when he was 15 to study in the Artist Diploma Program at Texas Christian University. In spring 2005, he completed his studies at TCU under the guidance of renowned pianist Josè Feghali, whom he still considers a major mentor. His other main teachers were Dariusz Pawlas and his mother, Anna Golka.

Adam recently completed his participation, as one of four selected participants, in the Carnegie Hall Professional Training Workshop with Leon Fleisher on Beethoven's Piano Sonatas. In 2007, Adam also took part in Ravinia's Steans Institute for Young Artists, where he studied solo and chamber music with Leon Fleisher, Claude Frank, Pamela Frank, Miriam Fried, Gary Hoffman, John O'Connor, Menahem Pressler, and Arie Vardi, among others.

Beginning this Fall, Adam will be studying with Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore.


www.adamgolka.com