Masterclasses & Teachers
The Masterclasses of the PIANO ACADEMY EPPAN 2024 will be held by Akiko Ebi, Arie Vardi and Andrea Bonatta. Participants will take one lesson of 60 minutes with each Professor. Different works are requested for the 3 lessons. The Masterclasses will take place at the Music School “Leonhard von Call” in Eppan.
Akiko Ebi
AKIKO EBI, born in Japan, began a breathtaking career in 1975 with the Grand Prix at the Marguerite Long International Piano Competition in Paris. Martha Argerich became her mentor before she studied in Paris as a master student of Aldo Ciccolini, Vlado Perlemuter and Louis Kentner.
Akiko Ebi gives concerts worldwide as a soloist and performs chamber music with artists such as Martha Argerich, Ivry Gitlis, Regis Pasquier, Rafael Gintoli, Angela Hewitt and Michel Dalberto.
She teaches at the "Geidai"-Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and is a juror at international competitions such as Marguerite Long, Clara Haskil, Jose I-turbi, Vianna da Motta, Gina Bachauer, Porto and Montreal. From 2011 to 2016 she was president of the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition in Japan.
Arie Vardi
ARIE VARDI is one of the most important pianists in Israel. He studied piano in Israel and in Basel (with Paul Baumgartner) and composition with Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen.
After winning the Chopin Competition in Israel and the Enescu Competition in Bucharest, he has performed worldwide as a soloist with almost all renowned orchestras under the direction of Paul Paray, Zubin Mehta, David Zinman and Kurt Masur, among others.
His repertoire includes the complete piano concertos by Bach and Mozart as well as the complete works of Debussy and Ravel. Many of his RCA CDs have won international awards.
Arie Vardi teaches as a professor at the Rubin Academy of Music / Tel Aviv University and since 1987 at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover. More than thirty of his students have won first prizes at the most important international competitions. He has served as a juror in many important competitions, including those in Beijing, Cleveland, Hamamatsu, Leeds, Milan, Moscow, Munich, Salt Lake City, Santander, Sydney, Tokyo, Vienna and Warsaw. Arie Vardi is the director of the Artur Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv.
Andrea Bonatta
ANDREA BONATTA is one of the most prominent Italian pianist and a successful conductor. He has given concerts all around the world. He has recorded on CD Brahms’ complete works for piano as well as several other CD’s dedicated to Liszt and Schubert, getting top critical reviews: His book on Brahms’ piano work is considered a milestone in this field.
Andrea Bonatta has been the Artistic Director and jury Chairman of the International “F. Busoni” Piano Competition and the Vice President of the World Federation of International Music Competitions of Geneva. He is now Artistic Adviser of the “Franz Liszt” Competition in Utrecht. He is also Honorary Professor at the Shanghai Conservatory, founder and director of the Piano Academy-Eppan and teaches at the Talent Music Master Courses in Brescia. Bonatta is often invited as a member of the jury at the most important international competitions, such as Liszt-Utrecht, Scriabin-Moscow, Beethoven-Bonn, Géza Anda-Zurich, Van Cliburn-Texas, Rubinstein-Tel Aviv, Cleveland (Jury Chairman), Sendai and many others. He very much likes chamber music and has played as a duet with pianists such as Paul Badura-Skoda and Pavel Gililov or violinists like Domenico Nordio or Sergei Krylov. Andrea Bonatta gave masterclasses in Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Hannover, Cologne, Moscow, Salzburg, Vienna, New York, Boston and many others.
Since many years Bonatta performs Mozart Concertos conducting from the piano, which led him to conduct also the great symphonic repertoire. As a conductor he has worked among others with the Orchestra del Teatro Olimpico di Vicenza in Italy, the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra in China, the Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra and the KBS Symphony Orchestra in South Korea, the Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra in Georgia, and the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra in Vilnius. In his symphonic repertoire the Symphonies of Johannes Brahms play a central role. Arie Vardi has said about him: indeed a natural born conductor with music flowing in the hands