Dragomir Bratić graduated from the Piano department with prof. Ninoslav Zivkovic and master’s degree in chamber music – piano duo in the class of prof. Zorica Cetkovic at the Faculty of Music Art in Belgrade – FMU. In addition, he attended master classes with professors Arbo Valdma, Igor Lazko, Pavel Nersesian and Natalia Trull. He is currently teaching at the Davorin Jenko School of Music in Belgrade.

Since 2005, he has been a member of the Association of Music Artists of Serbia. In the period between 2011 and 2020, he was the director of the Republic Competition of Music and Ballet Schools of Serbia, and since 2015, Professor Bratić has been the president of the Belgrade Piano Section.

He is active as a lecturer at seminars in many European countries: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Great Britain and Russia.

Due to the originality of his approach in working with children, he is one of the most talented piano pedagogues. He has won numerous awards for his teaching work in Serbia and abroad. He is the author of many lessons that emphasize an individual approach to solving music performance problems. His students played in all prestigious halls around Serbia as well as in the most famous concert halls abroad: Carnegie Hall in New York, Muzikverein in Vienna, Hamburg, Dresden, Tbilisi, Prague, Bologna, Stockholm, Moscow and elsewhere…

Students of Prof. Bratić received over 800 first and special prizes at domestic and foreign competitions in Slovenia, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Sweden, France, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Austria, Germany, Russia and in America.

He is often a member of juries, namely at almost all domestic competitions, as well as at numerous competitions in Slovenia, Italy, France, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Georgia, Austria, Kazakhstan, Czech Republic, Germany, Russia, Poland and Hungary.

He gives a lot of concerts in a piano duo with Katarina Krpan. He won first prizes at competitions in Vienna, Budapest and Moscow with his BG piano duo.

He is an official collaborator – piano accompanist of the Kolibri children’s choir of Radio Television of Serbia.

At the invitation of the Ministry of Education and the Institute for Education (improving education and upbringing), he participated in the development of new piano curricula for primary and secondary music schools. He is the author of the textbook Music culture for the first grade of primary school, published by BIGZ.

Since 2018, he has been a member of the sectoral department for music art at the National agency for qualifications.

The publishing house KLET included him in the list of “1000 most successful Serbian creators in the field of pre-university education”.

William Fong’s international career was launched in 1984 when he won the first prize, gold medal and Rosa Sabater prize at the Concurso Internacional de Piano in Jaén, Spain. His concerto début at St. John’s Smith Square with the Philharmonia Orchestra followed soon after.  He subsequently added successes in the Busoni, Cleveland, Iturbi, and Scottish International Competitions.

Performances in New York, Moscow and St Petersburg (under the auspices of the Sviatoslav Richter Foundation), and in Europe have drawn critical acclaim and enthusiastic audiences. Invited to China, supported by Arts Council England, William has performed and given master classes in Shanghai. He has also performed in Australia at the invitation of the Chair of the Australian Piano Pedagogy Conference and was the keynote speaker, giving a recital and master classes, at the Institute of Registered Music Teachers of New Zealand conference in Auckland.

William Fong maintains a busy schedule of recitals, master classes, teaching and lecturing both in the UK and abroad, as well as regular commitments to some of the finest international piano summer schools.

A musician of wide interests, William Fong has performed with ensembles such as the Brodsky Quartet and members of Guildhall Strings. He has also collaborated with singers Steve Davislim and James Rutherford and has recorded some fascinating and little known repertoire in the chamber music field. His concerts have been broadcast on television and on radio in Europe and the US. William Fong has performed at all of London’s major venues.  His concerts have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Classic FM, and BBC television.

A distinguished teacher, William Fong is in demand for master classes and adjudication in the UK and overseas. He is a Professor at the Royal Academy of Music www.ram.ac.uk and Head of Keyboard at the Purcell School for Young Musicians www.purcell-school.org – one of Europe’s leading specialist schools for talented young musicians, visiting professor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Artistic Director of “Piano Star” – an educational project and festival for young pianists in Romania.

His students’ achievements have included places and scholarships to study at Curtis Institute of Music USA, Universität der Künste Berlin, Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Wien (MDW), the Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Trinity Laban.  His students have also won important international competitions, including Liszt International Competition (Budapest), Weimar Liszt International Competition, Jeunesses Musicales Romania, and Lagny-Sur-Marne International Piano Competition. Students have also established successful careers as recording artists.

www.williamfongpiano.co.uk

First prize winner of the prestigious Concours de Genève in 2001, Roland Krüger performed in many important international venues such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, the Musikhalle (Laeiszhalle) in Hamburg, the Philharmonic Hall of Cologne, the Victoria Hall in Geneva, the Casino in Basel, the Beethoven Hall in Bonn, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Rheingau Musik Festival or the Festival di Ravello in Italy.

As a soloist, he worked with orchestras such as Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestre National de Belgique, Radio-Philharmonie Hannover des NDR, Basler Sinfonie-Orchester and Orchester der Beethovenhalle Bonn under conductors like Fabio Luisi, Dennis Russell Davies, Othmar Maga, Eiji Oue or Marc Soustrot.

Roland Krüger studied with Prof. Oleg Maisenberg and Prof. Karl-Heinz Kämmerling. From 1999 until 2001 he was one of the very few selected students in the class of Krystian Zimerman in Basel, Switzerland.

His recordings include Debussy’s 12 Études for Ars Musici as well as solo works by Schubert, Janáček and Bartók for paladino music. For naxos he recorded chamber music by Joseph Merk, Hummel’s transcriptions of Mozart-Symphonies and the complete works for Cello and Piano by Carl Reinecke.

In 2007, Krüger became professor at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media where he is currently the Head of Keyboard and the Head of the Solo performance programme. Many of his students have regularly won prizes, for example in Aarhus, Barletta, Dresden (Anton Ru- binstein), Meiningen (von Bülow), at the “Young Pianists of the North” Competition, in Paris (Ile de France), Sendai, Vevey (Clara Haskil), Vilnius (Čiurlionis) or Zwickau (Schumann).

Roland Krüger has been conducting master classes in Germany, Austria, Finland, China, Korea, Japan, for example at the Sibelius Academy Helsinki, the Mänttä festival, the Toho Gakuen School Tokyo, the Fryderyk Chopin University Warsaw, the UdK in Berlin, the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and the Lithuanian Music Academy of Vilnius. He is often invited as a jury member of national (Deutscher Musikwettbewerb, Bundeswettbewerb “Jugend musiziert”) and international (Ciurlionis, Tallinn, ZF Friedrichshafen, Grotrian, San Donà di Piave) piano competitions.

roland@rolandkrueger.com

“…a straightforward and sensitive pianist….rich with imagination and technical prowess…” (The New York Times)

German pianist Gesa Luecker made her concerto debut aged 12. She has been a prize-winner in national and international competitions and has performed in major halls such as the NDR Radio Hall Hannover, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall New York, Wigmore Hall London, Oriental Arts Center Shanghai. Gesa gained the soloist diploma from the University of Music and Drama Hannover under the guidance of Martin Dörrie and Matti Raekallio, and received further inspiration from musicians such as Arie Vardi, Fabio Bidini and Jerome Rose. Her CDs are published at Genuin and Wergo Label.

In 2010 Gesa Luecker became a professor of piano at the University for Music and Dance Cologne as one of the youngest professors for piano in Germany. Currently she is serving as chair of the piano department.

Her students are frequently prize winners in international competitions and winning teaching positions.

She is active as Jury member (Singapore International Piano Competition 2020, NYCA worldwide Debut Audition, IKIF Dorothy McKenzie Award New York, Carl Bechstein Competition Berlin, Carl Maria von Weber International Piano Competiiton Dresden and many more)  and gives regularly Masterclasses worldwide.

www.gesaluecker.com