Michael Roll (born 1946) is an English classical pianist, winner of the first Leeds International Piano Competition in 1963.
Roll, born in the UK to Viennese Jewish parents, was a child prodigy who performed on the concert platform with the City of Birmingham Orchestra at the age of ten and at the Royal Festival Hall aged twelve under the direction of Sir Malcolm Sargent. [1] Roll won the Leeds Piano Competition aged only seventeen, [2] while still a pupil at Roundhay School. [3] As of 2016, he remains the competition's youngest winner. [4]
His success at Leeds led to appearances worldwide, working with conductors such as Boulez, Boult, Giulini, Haitink, Masur, Previn, Sawallisch, Sanderling and more recently Gergiev and Steinberg. In 1973 he completed an acclaimed tour of Southern Africa. [5] Orchestras have included the London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus and Boston Symphony Orchestras, with the last of which Roll made his American debut in 1974 under Sir Colin Davis. International festivals have included Vienna, Edinburgh, Hong Kong and Aldeburgh, where he performed together with Benjamin Britten. He has also appeared on sixteen occasions at the Promenade Concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
Roll is married to pianist Juliana Markova, and they have one son, Maximilian. [6]
John Richard Lill is a British classical pianist.
Thomas Joseph Edmund Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Five compositions by Adès received votes in the 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000: The Tempest (2004), Violin Concerto (2005), Tevot (2007), In Seven Days (2008), and Polaris (2010).
Abbey Henry Simon was an American concert pianist, teacher, and recording artist. He was a protégé of Josef Hofmann at the Curtis Institute of Music and a winner of the Naumburg International Piano Competition in 1940. He was called a "supervirtuoso" by The New York Times.
Jennifer Elizabeth Pike is a British violinist.
Kevin Kenner is an American concert pianist.
Benjamin Grosvenor is a British classical pianist.
The Leeds International Piano Competition, informally known as The Leeds and formerly the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition, takes place every three years in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1961 by Marion, Countess of Harewood, Dame Fanny Waterman, and Roslyn Lyons, with the first competition being held in 1963. Waterman was the chair and artistic director up to the 2015 competition when Paul Lewis and Adam Gatehouse became Co-Artistic Directors. The first round of the competition takes place internationally and in 2021 went 'virtual' when 63 pianists were recorded in 17 international locations and the Jury deliberated online, in order to circumvent the various impacts of Covid. The 2nd round, semi-finals and finals take place in the Great Hall of the University of Leeds and in Leeds Town Hall and in 2018 & 2021 were streamed to a large global audience through medici.tv, achieving over 4.7 million views and listens through multiple channels and platforms, including the BBC, Amadeus.tv (China), Classic FM and Mezzo.tv.
Daniel Pollack is an American pianist.
Sunwook Kim is a South Korean pianist living in London. He came to international recognition when he won the prestigious Leeds International Piano Competition in 2006.
Anastasia Rizikov is a Canadian classical pianist. ...Ms. Rizikov is an extraordinary virtuoso, with abundant technical prowess. But she is more than the sum of ten fingers – she is a consummate artist, born to play, to love the art and act of music-making... was written about her by Renée Silberman at The Beat Magazine, January 21, 2014.
Haochen Zhang is a Chinese pianist from Shanghai, China. He was a Gold Medalist and First Prize winner of the Thirteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2009, becoming one of the youngest winners in the history of the competition. Zhang received a 2017 Avery Fisher Career Grant in recognition of his outstanding talents.
Alessio Bax is an Italian classical pianist. He graduated from the Bari conservatory at the record age of 14. He won the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition in Japan at age 19 and the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition in 2000 after first participating in 1993. Bax was a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's CMS Two for three seasons, beginning in 2009. He also received the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2009. He studied at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas with Basque pianist Joaquín Achúcarro. Bax is a Steinway Artist. He also serves on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music as a professor of piano.
Yuja Wang is a Chinese classical pianist. She was born in Beijing, began studying piano there at age six, and went on to study at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. By the age of 21, she was already an internationally recognized concert pianist, giving recitals around the world. She has a recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon. Wang tours internationally, and has received critical praise for her performances. Yuja Wang lives in New York City.
Behzod Abduraimov is an Uzbek pianist. A former student of Van Cliburn International Piano Competition gold medalist Stanislav Ioudenitch at Park University's International Center for Music (ICM), he was described by The Independent as "the most perfectly accomplished pianist of his generation". Abduraimov won the London International Piano Competition in 2009 at the age of 18, which launched his career. He continues to perform internationally in solo recitals, chamber music performances, and as soloist with leading orchestras such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Mariinsky Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra under such conductors as Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Manfred Honeck, Vasily Petrenko, James Gaffigan, Jakub Hrůša, Thomas Dausgaard and Vladimir Jurowski.
Robert Emery is an English pianist, conductor and orchestrator.
Andrejs Osokinsis a Latvian pianist. He is laureate of several piano competitions, including the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv, the Long-Thibaud International Competition in Paris, the Leeds International Piano Competition and the Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition in Brussels. In April 2015 he became the Audience Awardee of the 5th International German Piano Award presented by International Piano Forum. In 2009 Osokins was awarded with The Grand Music Award 2008,which is the highest form of state recognition in the field of music in Latvia.
Jayson Lloyd Gillham is a British-Australian classical pianist, based in London. In 2014, Gillham was the winner of the 2014 Montreal International Musical Competition, which brought him to international attention. His outstanding performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 was described in the Huffington Post as being played 'with such streamlined patrician elegance that he took home First Prize and a string of engagements...' The renowned British conductor Sir Mark Elder said Gillham 'plays Beethoven with a sort of ‘glow’'. In May 2015, Gillham signed a three-album deal with ABC Classics.
Eric Lu is an American classical pianist. The recipient of the gold medal at the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2018, which he won at age 20, 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.
Alexandra Ioana Dariescu is a Romanian British classical concert pianist, educator, mentor and producer. She is best known for her multimedia project The Nutcracker and I and her focus on promoting the works of female composers.
Marios Papadopoulos is a Cypriot-born, British conductor and pianist. He is the founder and music director of the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra in Residence at the University of Oxford.