ADAM GOLKA pianist
Polish-American pianist Adam Golka enjoys a distinguished reputation as an accomplished and extensive concert performer. Golka has been hailed as a pianist with “brilliant technique and real emotional depth” (The Washington Post) and has been commended for “playing with a dramatic flair and conviction, bold yet musical, filled with risk-taking” (The Wall Street Journal). Golka will perform the third concert in the 30th Anniversary Season of the College of Charleston International Piano Series with an impressive program of works by Beethoven in honor of the composer’s 250th anniversary of his birth.
The concert will take place on Tuesday, January 14 at 7:30 p.m., in the Emmett Robinson Theatre, 54 Saint Philip St. General admission is $20 and FREE for 18 and under and College of Charleston students & employees. Tickets may be purchased online at go.cofc.edu/ips, at the door, by emailing concerts@cofc.edu, or by calling (843) 953-6315.
Golka also will offer a master class, free and open to the public on Wednesday, January 15, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., in the Cato Center for the Arts Room 237. Students from the Music Department at the College of Charleston will perform.
Adam Golka has been regularly on the concert stage since the age of sixteen, when he won first prize at the 2nd China Shanghai International Piano Competition. He has also received the Gilmore Young Artist Award and the Max I. Allen Classical Fellowship Award from the American Pianists Association, and was presented by Sir András Schiff in recitals at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr in Germany, Tonhalle Zürich, and in Berlin and New York.
Recent highlights include the Mozart Concerto No. 24, K. 491 with the NFM Leopoldinum Chamber Orchestra in Wroclaw, Poland; Mozart No. 21, K. 467 with JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic; Grieg’s Concerto with Symphony in C in New Jersey, and the Stravinsky Concerto for Two Pianos with pianist Roman Rabinovich in Tel-Aviv. Golka was presented on the Virtuosos Series by the Cliburn Foundation in Dallas, where he continues annual performances of his special education program: “Van Cliburn: An American Hero.” He made his San Francisco Symphony debut last summer in Beethoven Piano Cto. No. 4, when he also returned to the Krzyzowa Festival in Poland, a favorite destination of his, where he premiered his own two-piano arrangement of Debussy’s La Mer, and narrated – in Polish, English, and German – Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals with his own poetry written especially for the opening concert of the Festival.
In concertos ranging from Mozart and Beethoven to Tchaikovsky, Ravel, and Rachmaninov, Golka has appeared as soloist with the BBC Scottish, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Indianapolis, New Jersey, Milwaukee, Phoenix, San Diego, Fort Worth, Vancouver, Seattle, and Jacksonville Symphonies; Grand Teton Festival Orchestra; National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa; the Sinfonia Varsovia; the Shanghai Philharmonic; the Warsaw Philharmonic; and the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra of Venezuela. In 2011 he performed a cycle of all five Beethoven concerti with the Lubbock Symphony, under the baton of his brother, Tomasz Golka.
An avid chamber musician, Golka has participated in the Marlboro and Prussia Cove Music Festivals, Music @Menlo, Caramoor, with the Orpheus Chamber Players, and in regular appearances at Frankly Music in Milwaukee, as well as touring with the Manhattan Chamber Players.
In recital, Golka has appeared at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in New York; in the Mostly Mozart Festival in David Geffen Hall; Concertgebouw’s Kleine Zaal, and Musashino Civic Cultural Hall in Tokyo; and at the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, the Ravinia Festival, the New York City International Keyboard Festival at Mannes, the Newport Music Festival and the Duszniki Chopin festival. He has premiered solo works written for him by Richard Danielpour, Michael Brown and Jarosław Gołembiowski. Golka’s début disc, featuring the first sonata of Brahms and the Hammerklavier Sonata of Beethoven, was released in 2014 by First Hand Records.
In celebration of Beethoven’s 250th birthday in 2020, Golka is playing all 32 of Beethoven’s Sonatas in performance, in tandem with his next recordings for First Hand Records, which will release Golka’s complete Beethoven Sonatas.
Golka studied with the late José Feghali, and spent four years at the Peabody Conservatory studying with Leon Fleisher. Since finishing his official studies, he has continued his work with great musicians such as András Schiff, Alfred Brendel, Richard Goode, Murray Perahia, Ferenc Rados and Rita Wagner.
Adam Golka acts as Artist-in-Residence at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., where he teaches piano, chamber music, and conducts the Holy Cross Chamber Orchestra.
Next on the International Piano Series: March 3, 2020 – ZOFO Piano Duo
ZOFO, which is shorthand for 20-finger orchestra (ZO=20 and FO=finger orchestra), also performs heart-pumping duet arrangements of famous orchestral pieces such as Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, exploring the realms in which many composers first experienced their symphonic visions. They believe that the piano duet is the most intimate form of chamber music, with two musicians playing individual parts on one instrument in a complex, often beautiful choreography of four hands.