ADAM GOLKA – UNITED STATES/POLAND
Pianist Adam Golka has been regularly on the concert stage since the age of 16, 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.
This season began with recitals for Philip Lorenz International Keyboard Concerts and Mesa Arts Center, where Adam presented a program that bridges two long-term repertoire interests: Beethoven Sonatas, which he has explored and performed through his gripping 32@32 series (he paired each sonata with a short film that explored perspectives on the Sonatas, and hosted an amalgam of distinguished guests, from astrophysicists to Alfred Brendel) and Brahms, whose complete piano works he will perform and record over the next few years.
Other highlights of the 2022–2023 season include: Fazil Say’s “Silk Road” Concerto (1994) paired with de Falla’s Nights in the Garden of Spain with the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra and the Asheville Symphony Orchestra; Tchaikovsky 1 with Daniel Meyer and the Erie Philharmonic; Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in Spain, with the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada; and a duo recital tour with violinist Itamar Zorman with performances at Wigmore Hall and elsewhere.
As a concerto soloist, he has appeared with dozens of orchestras, including the BBC Scottish Symphony, NACO (Ottawa), Warsaw Philharmonic, Shanghai Philharmonic, as well as the San Francisco, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, New Jersey, and San Diego Symphonies. He has enjoyed collaborations with conductors such as Donald Runnicles, Pinchas Zukerman, Mark Wigglesworth, and Joseph Swensen, and he has made countless concerto appearances with his brother, conductor Tomasz Golka. Adam gave his Carnegie Stern Auditorium debut in 2010 with the New York Youth Symphony and his New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall, presented by the Musicians Emergency Fund.
Adam has recorded works by Beethoven, Schumann, and Brahms for First Hand Records, and he has premiered works composed for him by Richard Danielpour, Michael Brown, and Jarosław Gołębiowski.
Adam Golka is deeply indebted to his two main teachers, 1985 Cliburn Gold Medalist José Feghali, with whom he studied at Texas Christian University, and Leon Fleisher, with whom he worked as part of the Artist Diploma program at the Peabody Conservatory. Since finishing his formal studies, he has continued to develop his artistry through private mentorship from his favorite artists: Alfred Brendel, Richard Goode, Murray Perahia, Ferenc Rados, and András Schiff, who invited him to give recitals at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr and Tonhalle Zürich for the “Sir András Schiff Selects” concert series.