Competition 2014
We are pleased to announce the winners of the Gianni Bergamo Classic Music Award – Harpsichord Competition 2014
Ranking 2014
- 1st prize: Vincent Bernhardt (France)
- 2nd prize: Olga Pashchenko (Russia)
- 3rd prize: Helga Varadi (Hungary)
Winners 2014
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1st prize: Vincent Bernhardt
He studied organ and harpsichord at the Conservatory of Metz, later organ and basso continuo at the Conservatoire National Supèrieur de Lyon and at the Hochschule für Musikl in Stuttgart, obtaining the Master degree in organ, continuo and harpsichord. He then studied organ (historic practice) at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with Andrea Marcon obtaining the Master degree.
In 2011 he won the 3rd prize at the international organ competition “Gottfried Silbermann in Freiberg.
He was harpsichordist of the European Union Baroque Orchestra and the Orchestre Français Baroque des Jeunes. He was organist of the Cathedral in Lyon, of the Festival de Musique de la Chaise-Dieu, of the Evangleische-Reformierte Kirche in Flüh/Switzerland.
He is founder and conductor of the baroque ensemble Il delirio fantastic with which he played concerts in France, Switerland and Cuba, performing Vivaldi, Bach – 60 cantatas – and other Italian and German composers of 1700-1750.
He teaches organ and basso continuo at the Conservatory of Metz, France.
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2nd prize: Olga Pashchenko
She is a young artist who has established a reputation as a versatile performer on different keyboards from harpsichord to fortepiano and modern piano. With her performances and many awards at international competitions she demonstrates a highly individual style combined with virtuosity, wealth of colour and sensitivity towards the broad repertoire that she performs on each different keyboard.
Born in Moscow in 1986, Olga began her musical studies at the age of 6. She gave her first piano recital a the age of 9 in New York. In 1993, she was a laureate at the All-Russian Young Pianists Competition and entered the Moscow Special Gnessin Music School where she studied piano with Tatiana Zelikman and harpsichord with Olga Martynova, then she entered the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and graduated in 2010 and from 2011 she studied fortepiano and harpsichord at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam graduating in 2013.
She was given scholarships and was awarded at several competitions in Russia, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Spain etc.
She performs as soloist, chamber musician as well as orchestral soloist in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, the USA and Russia. She is also a regular guest at early and contemporary music festivals across Europe. She has made various radio and cd-recordings.
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3rd prize: Helga Varadi
She studied harpsichord at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna, at the Conservatoire Supérieure de Musique et de Danse in Lyon and at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis Hochschule für Alte Musik.
She attended several masterclasses and participated and won different competitions.
She was worked at the Vienna State Opera. She is main organist at the Catholic Church St. Josef in Schlieren-Dietikon, production assistant at SwissClassics Basel and organist at the Reformed Church in Dietikon.She has played several concerts in Europe and works as teacher of harpsichord, piano and organ.
The Jury of 2014
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Maestro Gianni Bergamo
Gianni Bergamo was born in Milan, Italy in 1941, attended primary school in Italy and Liceo in Switzerland. After a degree in Economy (1964) at the Catholic University of Milan, he dedicated himself to the study of music with Tissoni (harmony and composition), D. Maffeis (organ) and N. Sanzogno (orchestra conducting) at the Conservatory of Bergamo, Italy.
From 1964 to 1994 has been a businessman with his own import-export, real estate and finance companies, though at the same time he has remained close to music and to its world.
In 1990 he created the Cultural Association “Gli Amici Cantori”, first as a chorus alone, then later accompanied by an orchestra. He has given many concerts in Italy with them, preferring the symphonic-sacred repertoire (masses, oratories, passions, etc.). At present, he lives in Santiago del Chile. -
Bob van Asperen
Bob van Asperen (Amsterdam, 8 October 1947) is a Dutch harpsichordist and early keyboard instrument performer, as well as a conductor. He graduated in 1971 from the Amsterdam Conservatory, where he studied the harpsichord with Gustav Leonhardt and the pipe organ with Albert de Klerk. Since then he has been performing extensively in Europe and the rest of the world, both as a soloist and as an accompanist/conductor.
In addition to his live performances, he has recorded repeatedly for several labels, including Sony, EMI, Teldec, Virgin, and Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, specialising in the keyboard repertoire of the 16th - 18th centuries, such as the harpsichord works of Froberger, J. S. Bach and Handel. One of the most important discography projects he has undertaken is the complete keyboard works of C.P.E. Bach and also the complete sonatas of Catalan composer Antonio Soler (Astrée, 1992). Various other projects are under way, while many of his recordings have been awarded with prestigious prizes, such as the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik and the Diapason d'Or.
Bob van Asperen has taught at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam, while for the past thirty years he has been giving master-classes in Europe, USA and elsewhere. In addition to his teaching activities, he has also contributed as a musicologist and editor of several modern editions of works by J. S. Bach and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, as well as other early Dutch composers.
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Christophe Rousset
Christophe Rousset, the founder of the Les Talens Lyriques and an internationally renowned harpsichordist, is a musician and an orchestral conductor inspired by a passion for opera and the exploration of the European musical heritage.
After harpsichord studies at La Schola Cantorum in Paris with Huguette Dreyfus, and subsequently at the Conservatoire Royal in The Hague with Bob van Asperen (winning, at the age of 22, the prestigious First Prize in the 7th Bruges Harpsichord Competition), followed by the creation of his own ensemble, Les Talens Lyriques, in 1991, Christophe Rousset has a perfect grasp of the rich wealth and diversity of the baroque and classical repertoires.
Having initially attracted the notice of the international press and record companies with his extraordinary talent as a harpsichordist, he soon went on to make his mark as a young and gifted conductor, earning invitations to perform with his ensemble at venues throughout the world (among them De Nederlandse Opera, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Salle Pleyel, Opéra de Lausanne, Teatro Real, Theater an der Wien, Opéra Royal de Versailles, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Barbican Centre, Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Aix-en-Provence and Beaune festivals).
Alongside this, he has continued to pursue an active career as harpsichordist and chamber musician, performing and recording on the most beautiful period instruments. His complete performances of the works for harpsichord of François Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau, d’Anglebert and Forqueray and various recordings of pieces by J. S. Bach (Partitas, Goldberg Variations, Concertos for harpsichord, English Suites, French Suites, the Klavierbüchlein) are considered to be landmark references. Performing on the instruments of the Musée de la Musique, he has recorded three CDs dedicated to Pancrace Royer, Rameau and Froberger. The albums “Suites” by Louis Couperin, “Fantasy” by J. S. Bach (Aparté) and the CD devoted to Louis Marchand and Rameau (Ambronay), have won him the acclaim of the press. His most recent record, devoted to works by Duphly (Aparté) was recently awarded the distinctions “Choc” from the review Classica and a “Diapason d’or” from Diapason.
Teaching is also an aspect with major importance for Christophe Rousset, who conducts and organises master classes and academies for young people (Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, CNSMD Paris, Académie d’Ambronay, Orchestre Français des Jeunes Baroques, Jeune Orchestre Atlantique, Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, the Britten-Pears Orchestra) and he devotes himself with great energy, alongside the musicians of Les Talens Lyriques, to introducing young secondary school pupils in Paris to music.
Christophe Rousset also has a career as guest conductor (Liceu Barcelona, Teatro San Carlo Naples, Teatro alla Scala, Royal Opera of Wallonia, Orquesta Nacional de España, among other orchestras) as well as the active pursuit of musical research, producing critical editions and the publication by Actes Sud of a study on Rameau in 2007.
Christophe Rousset has been awarded the French honours of Commandeur in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and Chevalier in the Ordre national du Mérite.
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Fabio Bonizzoni
Fabio Bonizzoni, one of the leading Italian harpsichordists and organists of his generation, graduated in organ, organ composition and harpsichord at the Royal Conservatorium in The Hague in Ton Koopman’s class.
After having played for several years with some of the most important orchestras specializing in early music (Amsterdam Baroque, Le Concert des Nations, Europa Galante), from 2004 he exclusively devotes himself to his activities as soloist and director, in particular of his own orchestra “La Risonanza”.
Furthermore, he is harpsichord professor at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague (Holland) and in Italy at the Conservatory of Novara; he is founder and president of the “Associazione Hendel”, a society devoted to the studies of Handel’s music in Italy.As a soloist he has been recording for many years for the Spanish label Glossa. His discography includes works by Claudio Merulo, Giovanni Salvatore, Giovanni Picchi, Francesco Geminiani, Bernardo Storace, Domenico Scarlatti and Johann Sebastian Bach (Goldberg Variations and the Art of Fugue). His last release as a soloist is devoted to the two books of toccatas by Girolamo Frescobaldi.
In 2010 he has completed with La Risonanza the project of recording the complete Italian Cantatas with instruments by G.F. Handel: this project has been defined by Gramophone magazine the most important of the decade, and 3 of the 7 CDs have been awarded the prestigious Handel Stanley Sadie Prize. The last disc issued, « Apollo e Dafne », is winner of a Gramphone Award in 2011.
His activity is also enriched by some commitments as guest conductor; in particular in April 2011 he conducted the orchestra of Teatro alla Scala in Milano in the new ballet “L’altro Casanova”.
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Lorenzo Ghielmi
Lorenzo Ghielmi has devoted many years to the study and interpretation of music from the Renaissance and the Baroque as organist, harpsichordist and conductor.
He gives concerts throughout Europe, in Japan and in America, and he has made many recordings for radio (BBC, WDR, MDR, Radio France, NHK) and for an extensive discography.His recordings of Bruhns, Bach, Handel concertos and the concertos by Haydn for organ and orchestra have been awarded the "Diapason d'or".
Lorenzo Ghielmi is the author of a book on Nicolaus Bruhns, and several studies on the art of the organ in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as well as on the performance of the works of Bach.
He teaches organ, harpsichord and ensemble music at the Civica Scuola di Musica di Milano, in the Istituto Musica Antica.Since 2006 he has been Professor of Organ at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel.
He is organist of the Ahrend organ in the Basilica San Simpliciano, Milan, where he has performed the complete organ works of JS Bach. He has served on many juries of international organ competitions (Toulouse, Chartres, Tokyo, Bruges, Freiberg, Maastricht, Lausanne, Nuremberg), and has been entrusted with conferences and specialised courses in many music institutions (Music Academy of Haarlem, Mozarteum in Salzburg, Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique in Paris, Hochschule für Musik in Lubeck, New England Conservatory in Boston, Academy of Music in Krakow) .He has also supervised the construction of several modern organs, including the monumental instrument in Tokyo Cathedral. Lorenzo Ghielmi is the director of the ensemble "La Divina Armonia".
photo © Daniel De Labra