Lidija Bizjak
Serbia, piano
Born in Belgrade in 1976, Lidija Bizjak began to play the piano at the age of six with Zlata Males. She graduated from the Music Academy in Belgrade in 1996 and then studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Jacques Rouvier and Maurice Bourgue, winning first prizes in both piano and chamber music. Meeting Ferenc Rados, Murray Perahia, Leon Fleisher, Arie Vardi, Alexander Lonquich, Ida Levin, Christoph Richter, Ksenija Jankovic, Irena Grafenauer and Sergio Azzolini was very important for her.
After winning many national competitions, she won a top prize at the 2000 Dublin International Piano Competition, as well as the special prize for the compulsory modern piece.
Lidija has given a large number of recitals and performances with orchestra like Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National de France, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Britten sinfonia, RTE Irland, Sinfonia Varsovia, Stuttgart Philharmonic orchestra, Orchestre de Capitole de Toulouse, Orchestre de Picardie, Belgrade Philharmonic… In 2000 she was chosen by the Cité de la Musique in Paris to represent France with Alexei Ogrintchouk in the international Rising Stars Series and performed in nine of the world’s most famous concert halls including New York’s Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall in London, Musikverein in Vienna, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Palais des Beaux-Arts in Bruxelles…
She has participated in festivals such as PROMS in London, the Open Prussia Cove et St Magnus in Great Britain, Lockenhaus in Austria, la Folle Journée in Nantes and in Tokyo, Bemus, Nomus and Somus in Serbia, Roque d’Anthéron Colmar, Périgord Noir, Nohant, Juventus, Midem Classic in France, Martinu in Prague, Domaine Forget in Canada, Charlottesville in USA.
In 2002, she formed the piano duo with her sister Sanja and since, they have performed in the most important halls in Paris, in different festivals in Japan, France, Italie, England… They won two special prises at the ARD Piano duo competition 2005 in Munich and recorded their first CD for French label “Mirare” with Stravinski’s work for four hands (Sacre du printemps, Petruchka) which received Télérama’s ffff and a new released CD for Onyx label with Poulenc’s and Martinu’s concertos with Stuttgarter Philharmoniker and Radoslaw Sculz which received great reviews in Gramophone, BBC magasin, another Télérama fff.
Lidija Bizjak’s first solo CD with Schubert and Schumann sonatas at Lyrinx-France label received the “Diapason Découverte” award in 2007. Her recording of the Byzantine concerto for piano and orchestra by Serbian composer Ljubica Maric (1909-2003), made with the Serbian Radio and Television orchestra was released in 2010.
She is also teaching in Paris and Lille.
“Lidija Bizjak’s piano sounds with regal abundance, without hardness, with a prolonged resonance that reveals what care this young artist takes not to go against the nature of her instrument; even more, how deeply she is in love with it - no less than with the music she plays…” (Alain Lompech, Diapason); “Lidija Bizjak displays a magnificent sense of poetry, a landscape of silences and murmurs; she also reveals the hidden depths of a work that does no favours to musical acrobats. This is top-flight piano playing.” (Jean-Luc Macia, La Croix)
Mihajlo Zurković
Serbia, piano
Mihajlo Zurković (1978) was born in Sombor, Serbia where he started playing piano. At the age of 14, being given a full scholarship, he became a student of the “Zero Year” (for outstanding young talents) at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, in the class of Jokuthon Mihailović. He graduated and later obtained a master’s degree at the Academy of Arts in the same class. At present, Zurković is on doctoral studying program at the Faculty of Music Art in Belgrade under Jokuthon Mihailović’s mentoring and also employed as a docent lecturer for piano at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad.
He won numerous awards at national and international competitions and among them the most important are: Top Prize at the International Competition “Petar Konjović” (Belgrade, 1995), First Prize at the European Piano Competition (Moncalieri - Italy, 1995), Third Prize at the International Competition “Frederic Chopin” (Novi Sad, 1997), Finalist of the Dinu Lipatti Competition (Bucharest - Romania, 2002), First Prize at the International Forum (Kiev - Ukraine, 2009).
He had his first solo concert at the age of 12 and since then he has played over 500 recitals, chamber music concerts and appeared many times as a soloist with different orchestras. His performances have led him round Europe (Italy, France, Romania, Hungary, Russia, France, Spain, Belgium, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia), China, Japan and USA. He participated in the project “Operation 40 Fingers” within he had a concert tour in Italy in the concert season 2007/08.
In December 2009, he had debut recitals in prestigious halls of New York: two concerts in Bechstein Concert Hall and a concert in Symphony Space. In March 2010, he proceeded his concert activity with the recitals in Russia, playing in very important halls of St. Petersburg such as: Small Hall of Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, The Great Hall of Mussorgsky College (within the festival dedicated to Frederic Chopin) and in one of the most prestigious halls in St. Petersburg – Sheremetev Castle.
He has recorded for Swiss Radio, Radio Vaticana, Radio Television of Montenegro, MTV2-Hungarian National Television and Serbian National Television.
In 2009, Zurkovic recorded LIVE CD produced by “Laza Kostic” Cultural Centre (Sombor) and the Academy of Arts (Novi Sad) with pieces by Schubert, Scriabin, Brahms and Chopin.
“For its part, Misha Zurković sported nothing short of amazing piano skills. His is to be considered in all respect a superior talent, unconditionally capable of expressiveness and clarity of the sound and should be considered, without any fear of exaggeration, one of the biggest names in the piano world…” (Alessandro Samsa, Recensioni di musica classica, 2014); “We were overwhelmed with the approach that is at once intimate and extrovert, with an aesthetic palette of finely differentiated tone colors, tumultuous emotions, impeccable virtuosity, and at the same time seemingly simple and easy surrender which musicality was never questioned. Zurkovic’s interpretation captivates from the beginning to the end with its beauty and exciting musical flow, minutely formed details and stylistic persuasiveness.” (Marija Adamov, Dnevnik 2016).
