Daniel Vnukowski | |
|---|---|
 Vnukowski giving a lecture recital in China | |
| Background information | |
| Born | July 15, 1981 Windsor, Ontario, Canada |
| Occupation(s) | Pianist |
| Instrument(s) | Piano |
| Years active | 1995-2012, 2016-present |
| Website | www |
Daniel Vnukowski (born July 15, 1981, also Wnukowski) is a Polish Canadian pianist and classical music broadcaster.
Vnukowski was born in Windsor, Ontario. One of his grandfathers was a Holocaust survivor. [1] At age 3 and a half he showed strong fascination for a grand piano made completely out of glass in a music store and begged his parents to begin taking piano lessons. [2] [3] At the age of 12, he performed his composition "Like A Dove" together with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra. In 1997, at the age of 15, he moved to Warsaw, Poland for further studies and in 2000 became a laureate of the National Chopin Piano Competition resulting in many concerts all throughout Europe. [4]
He studied piano at the Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, Poland, with Piotr Paleczny, at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland, with Leon Fleisher [2] [3] and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Ronan O'Hora and Graham Johnson. In 2006, he was awarded a scholarship to study at the International Piano Academy Lake Como. [5]
His winning numerous performance awards and prizes has enabled him to perform all over Europe, Asia, North America and South America in important concert halls including the National Philharmonic in Warsaw, Poland, the Concertgebouw Music Hall in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the Salle Pleyel in Paris, France, and the Stadt Casino in Basel, Switzerland, the Tokyo University of the Arts in Tokyo, Japan, and the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Italy. [2] [3]
He has performed with the Polish Radio Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, Windsor Symphony, Orchestra Filarmonica Marchigiana, Southfield Symphony, Poznan Philharmonic, Sinfonia Iuventus, Tifereth Israel Orchestra, with conductors such as Jerzy Maksymiuk, Alain Trudel, David Amos, Tomasz Bugaj, Romolo Gessi and John Morris Russell. He is also active as a chamber musician and vocal accompanist. His festival engagements include performances at the Festival Dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy; the Pre-LSO Concert Series in London, UK; the Coppet Festival in Geneva, Switzerland; and the Euromusica Masterconcert Series and Uto Ughi Festival in Rome, Italy. [2] [3]
Vnukowski has an interest in the music of Frédéric Chopin and other notable Polish composers such as Karol Szymanowski, Marek Stachowski, and Pawel Szymański. He has performed at numerous Frédéric Chopin societies around the world in cities such as Rome, Paris, Vienna, Toronto, Basel, Tokyo, Detroit, Warsaw, Singapore, Buenos Aires and Duszniki Zdrój. In 2010, Vnukowski performed Chopin's works worldwide in honor of the composer's 200th birth anniversary, including a recital together with soprano Aleksandra Kurzak in Poznań, Poland.
Daniel Vnukowski has also performed in numerous piano festivals such as the Chopin and His Europe festival in Warsaw, Poland, the Spoleto Festival Dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, [6] Italy, the Duszniki Zdrój Chopin Festival in Duszniki Zdrój, Poland, [2] the Euromusica Masterconcert Series and the Uto Ughi Festival in Rome, Italy, [7] International Piano Festival Chopiniana in Buenos Aires, Argentina, [8] the Coppet Festival in Geneva, Switzerland, [9] as well as those organized by the Chopin Society in Basel, Switzerland, [10] the Chopin Society in Vienna, Austria [11] and the Chopin Society in Rome, Italy. [12]
Career highlights:
His performances have been broadcast on international radio and television stations, including CBC Radio, Polish Radio 2, Dublin City FM, Tuttoggi TV, Rai Uno, Radiotelevisione svizzera di lingua italiana and Last FM.
The San Diego Art's music critic wrote that "his dynamic range is phenomenal" and that he has an "ability to play things at supernatural velocity without making a single mistake." [27]
The music of interwar Jewish composers is a particular focus of Vnukowski's repertoire, especially those composers who were affected by the Holocaust. Vnukowski is the recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and other foundations for promoting the works of exiled composers such as Szymon Laks, Władysław Szpilman, Viktor Ullmann, and Józef Koffler. Vnukowski recorded the recently published piano concerto of Józef Koffler together with Sinfonia Iuventus Orchestra conducted by Christoph Slowinski, which was released on the EDA label in 2017. [28] In January 2019, he released an album featuring the solo piano works of Karol Rathaus on the Toccata Classics Label, which was called a "crucial addition to the library of anyone interested in interwar German music" by Fanfare Magazine. [29]
Vnukowski's recordings in this field have also included the exiled composer Walter Arlen's complete piano works, which Vnukowski edited for the Vienna-based publisher Doblinger. Additionally, his performance of Walter Arlen's piano works at the Austrian Parliament on May 5, 2017, during the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust (Gedenktag gegen Gewalt und Rassismus im Gedenken an die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus) was broadcast live on Austrian television for ORF-2. [30] His recordings of Walter Arlen's piano music were used as a soundtrack in a documentary about the composer's life titled "Walter Arlen's First Century" (Das erste Jahrhundert des Walter Arlen), which premiered at the Vienna International Film Festival on October 30, 2018. [31]
He has received accolades from music critics for his performances and recordings of music by exiled composers. The Sunday Times called him "a dashing pianist",; [32] the 2018 Autumn issue of Fanfare Magazine noted "a fierce inner conviction and sense of discovery."; [33] the 2019 July/August issue of the American Record Guide remarked that his performances of Karol Rathaus's compositions were "played to the hilt". [34]
Vnukowski is currently active in promoting various charitable organizations. [35] [36] In 2018, he founded the Piano Six "New Generation" collective that involves five other pianists performing in remote, rural regions throughout Canada. [1] Vnukowski also joined as a member of the Vienna-based Varietas Ensemble, which performs recitals for handicapped children. [37]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
Wojciech Kilar was a Polish classical and film music composer. One of his greatest successes came with his score to Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1992, which received the ASCAP Award and the nomination for the Saturn Award for Best Music. In 2003, he won the César Award for Best Film Music written for The Pianist, for which he also received a BAFTA nomination.
Karol Józef Lipiński was a Polish music composer and virtuoso violinist active during the partitions of Poland. The Karol Lipiński University of Music in Wrocław, Poland is named after him.
Janina Fialkowska, is a Canadian classical pianist. A specialist of the Classic and Romantic repertoires, for more than thirty years she has appeared regularly with professional orchestras around the world, often performing the music of contemporary Polish composers including Lutosławski and Panufnik.
Howard Gordon Shelley is a British pianist and conductor. He was educated at Highgate School and the Royal College of Music. He was married to fellow pianist Hilary Macnamara till her death in 2021, with whom he performed and recorded in a two-piano partnership, and they have two sons.
Felicja Blumental was a Polish pianist and composer. "She was one of the relatively few women born in the first quarter of the twentieth century to have achieved an important career as a concert pianist."
Karol Kazimierz Kurpiński was a Polish composer, conductor and pedagogue. He was a representative of late classicism and a member of the Warsaw Society of Friends of Learning. He is also known for having composed the music to the 1831 patriotic song La Varsovienne with lyrics by Casimir Delavigne. He was also a mentor and an influence on young Chopin.
Atsuko Seta is a Japanese classical pianist. She is particularly successful in Poland, especially in the southwest of the country, regularly performing with the Sudeten Philharmonic Orchestra in Walbrzych and in her native Japan and in Bulgaria. Seta is living in Poland as a Honorable Citizen of Szczawno-Zdroj city. Artistic Director of Chiangmai Ginastera International Music Festival. Honorary Professor of Payap University Thailand. Honorary Chairman of Japan Ginastera Association.
Marian Filar was a Polish concert pianist and virtuoso composer living in the United States.
Jerzy "Jurek" Dybał is a Polish conductor and soloist double-bass. Since 2013, he is the director of the International Krzysztof Penderecki Festival in Zabrze, Poland. Since 2014, he is the director of orchestra at Sinfonietta Cracovia in Kraków.
Piotr Anderszewski is a Polish pianist and composer.
Kun-woo Paik is a South Korean pianist. He has performed with multiple orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic.
Gülsin Onay is a leading Turkish concert pianist of German descent, based in Cambridge, England.
Jan Lisiecki is a Canadian-born classical pianist of Polish ancestry. Lisiecki performs over a hundred concerts annually and has worked closely with the world's leading orchestras and conductors, his career at the top of the international concert scene spanning over a decade. He has been a recording artist with Deutsche Grammophon since the age of fifteen.
Đặng Thái Sơn is a Vietnamese-Canadian classical pianist. In 1980, he won the X International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, becoming the first pianist from Asia to do so. He has received particular acclaim for the sonority and poetry in his interpretations of Chopin and the French repertoire.
Daniil Olegovich Trifonov is a Russian pianist and composer. Described by The Globe and Mail as "arguably today's leading classical virtuoso" and by The Times as "without question the most astounding pianist of our age", Trifonov's honors include a Grammy Award win in 2018 and the Gramophone Classical Music Awards' Artist of the Year Award in 2016. The New York Times has noted that "few artists have burst onto the classical music scene in recent years with the incandescence" of Trifonov. He has performed as soloist with such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony and the Munich Philharmonic, and has given solo recitals in such venues as Royal Festival Hall, Carnegie Hall, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Berliner Philharmonie, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Concertgebouw, and the Seoul Arts Center.
Anna Borysivna Fedorova is a Ukrainian concert pianist. Fedorova performs as soloist, chamber musician and with symphony orchestras in the major concert halls of the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, UK, Ukraine, Poland, the US, Mexico, Argentina, and parts of Asia. Fedorova is a David Young Piano Prize Holder supported by a Soiree d'Or Award and Keyboard Trust.
Szczepan Kończal is a Polish classical pianist who has won prizes in many international music competitions held in more than a dozen different countries.
Eric Lu is an American classical pianist. The recipient of the gold medal at the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2018. he has performed with many of the world's major orchestras including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, and on tour with the Orchestre national de Lille. He records for Warner Classics under an exclusive contract, and has released critically acclaimed recordings of Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Schubert, and Schumann on the label.
Clare Hammond is a British concert pianist. In 2016, she was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society's Young Artist award.
Szymon Nehring is a Polish pianist.
