New Ross Piano Festival

2010 ARTISTS

	REBECCA ČÁPOVÁ Rebecca was born into a musical family in Cork, Ireland. Earliest studies were with Eleanor Malone at the Cork School of Music and with Mabel Swainson in Dublin. Her interest in foreign languages contributed to her eagerness to study in Mainland Europe. In 2000 Rebecca was accepted as a student of Pavel Gililov at the Hochschule fur Musik, Cologne. During her studies there, she was awarded several prizes, including 2nd Prize at the International Piano Competition Citta Di Sulmona, Italy; the Concerto Prize in Cologne and the Belfast Classical Music Bursary. While studying on the Masters degree program at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts she won 1st Prize at the International Piano Competition Citta Di Sangemini, 3rd Prize at the International Piano Competition V. Belini and the Lyons Club Bursary in Cork, Ireland. She also was the recipient of the award for the best interpretation of a work by Bach at the Concorso Internazionale C. Togni. Read more...
	SA CHEN Widely-acclaimed as one of the most gifted and thoughtful pianists to emerge from China in recent years, Sa Chen continues to enchant audiences around the globe. Recent orchestral engagements include her debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (at the Hollywood Bowl), the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (both with Edo de Waart), the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse (with Tugan Sokhiev) and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y Léon (with Vasily Petrenko). Read more...
	FINGHIN COLLINS One of Ireland's most successful musicians, Dubliner Finghin Collins studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music with John O'Conor and at the Geneva Conservatoire with Dominique Merlet. Winner of the RTE Musician of the Future Competition in 1994 and the Classical Category at the National Entertainment Awards in 1998, he went on to achieve major international success by taking first prize at the Clara Haskil International Piano Competition in Switzerland in 1999. Since then he has developed a flourishing international career that takes him all over Europe, the United States and the Far East. Read more...
	ABDEL RAHMAN EL BACHA Born in Beirut into a family of musicians, he started his piano schooling in 1967 with Zvart Sarkissian, a pupil of Marguerite Long and Jacques Février. At the age of 10, he was offered a scholarship by France, the former USSR and Great Britain. He took up the French offer out of cultural affinity and entered the Paris Conservatoire in the class of Pierre Sancan. He graduated with 4 first prizes (piano, chamber music, harmony and conterpoint). Read more...
	LIBOR NOVÁČEK Internationally recognised for his interpretations of Liszt and Brahms, Libor Nováček’s playing has already been compared with that of the great masters such as Kempff and Arrau. He is said to possess ‘exceptional poetic verve and inwardness’ and his recording of Brahms’s second Sonata is said to have ‘set a new benchmark’. Read more...
	RENOIR QUARTET In the year 2000, the Renoir Quartet successively won first prize in the FNAPEC competition in Paris, third prize in the Vittorio Gui International Competition in Firenze, and the fifth prize in the London International Competition. In 2003, at the Bordeaux International Competition, the group was awarded the Ministery of Culture Prize and the « Coup de cœur » of Mécénat Musical Société Générale. Read more...