 Victor Rosenbaum
USA
Internationally known pianist and teacher, Victor Rosenbaum, has received critical acclaim since his first Boston debut recital after joining
the New England Conservatory faculty in 1967 when the Boston Globe wrote: Rosenbaum
“makes up for all the drudgery the habitual concert-goer has to endure in the hope
of finding the occasional real, right thing”. His critical praise continues to this day. Describing his 2020 CD, “Brahms: The
Last Piano Pieces” (Bridge), Glyn Pursglove of MusicWeb International said: “Rosenbaum’s account of of these pieces seems to me impeccable. The whole disc is
magisterial; a mature pianist bringing deep thought and empathy to a series of mature
pieces which stand revealed, as clearly as I have heard, as masterpieces. This will
be the disc I turn to when I next want to hear any of these remarkable pieces”. Since leaving New England Conservatory in 2020 after 53 consecutive years of teaching,
Rosenbaum has had guest teaching and performing residencies in Puerto Rico, Israel,
Japan, Korea, Austria, Bulgaria, and Taiwan, where he was recently appointed Visiting
Professor of Piano and Chamber Music at National Taiwan Normal University. He is also
an Affiliated Artist on the faculty of MIT.
Over more than five decades, Rosenbaum has concertized widely as soloist and chamber
musician in the United States, Europe, Israel, Brazil, Russia, Japan, China and Taiwan,
appearing in such prestigious halls as Tully Hall in New York and the Hermitage in
St. Petersburg, Russia. An active chamber music performer, he has collaborated with
major artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, such as Leonard Rose, Paul Katz, Laurence
Lesser, Arnold Steinhardt, Robert Mann, Joseph Silverstein, James Buswell, Malcolm
Lowe, Walter Trampler, Leslie Parnas, Kim Kashkashian and the Brentano, Borromeo,
and Cleveland String Quartets, and was a member of two trios: The Wheaton Trio and
The Figaro Trio. Rosenbaum has played and/or taught at many summer festivals, among
them Tanglewood, the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, Kfar Blum and Tel Hai (in Israel),
Yellow Barn, Kneisel Hall (Blue Hill), Musicorda, Masters de Pontlevoy (France), the
Heifetz Institute, the International Keyboard Institute and Festival in New York,
the International Music Seminar in Vienna, the Bowdoin International Music Festival,
the Festival at Walnut Hill School, the Puerto Rico International Piano Festival,The
Art of the Piano Festival in Cincinnati, the Atlantic Music Festival, Piano Texas,
the Adamant Music School, the Lancaster International Piano Festival, and the Eastern
Music Festival, where he headed the piano department for five years.
Recital appearances have brought him to Chicago, Minneapolis, Tokyo, Taipei, Vienna,
Beijing, St. Petersburg (Russia), Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and New York, among others.
In addition to his absorption in the music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
(in particular Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, and Brahms), Rosenbaum
has performed and given premieres of works by many 20th and 21st Century composers,
including John Harbison, John Heiss, Peter Westergaard, Norman Dinerstein, Arlene
Zallman, Donald Harris, Daniel Pinkham, Miriam Gideon, Stephen Albert, and many others.
A musician of diverse talents, Rosenbaum is also a composer and has frequently conducted
in the Boston area and beyond.
Rosenbaum, who studied with Elizabeth Brock and Martin Marks while growing up in Indianapolis,
and went on to study with Rosina Lhevinne at the Aspen Festival and Leonard Shure
in New York (while earning degrees at Brandeis University and Princeton), has become
a renowned teacher himself. Rosenbaum’s students have established teaching and performing
careers in the US and abroad, and have won top competition prizes including, most
recently, Aristo Sham’s Gold Medal in the 2025 Van Cliburn Competition, and in such
competitions as the Young Concerts Artists, Charles Wadsworth International Competition,
New Orleans International Competition, Casagrande International Piano Competition,
Gina Bachauer Competition, and the New York International Competition, among others.
During his long tenure on the faculty of New England Conservatory, he chaired its
piano department for more than a decade, and was also Chair of Chamber Music. On the
faculty of Mannes School of Music in New York from 2003-2017, he has also been Visiting
Professor of Piano at the Eastman School of Music, a guest teacher at Juilliard, and
presents lectures, workshops, and master classes for teachers’ groups and schools
both in the U. S. and abroad, including at London’s Royal Academy of Music, Royal
College of Music, and Guildhall School, the conservatories of St. Petersburg and Moscow,
Beijing Central Conservatory, Shanghai Conservatory, the Toho School in Tokyo, Tokyo
Ondai, Seoul National University, most major schools in Taiwan, and other institutions
such as the Menuhin School near London, and the Jerusalem Music Center. Rosenbaum’s
sixteen years as Director and President of the Longy School of Music (1985-2001) transformed
the school into a full-fledged degree granting conservatory as well as a thriving
community music school.
In addition to his Brahms disc, Rosenbaum’s recordings on the Bridge and Fleur de
Son labels include a Mozart CD, three Schubert discs, one of which was described as
“a poignant record of human experience”, and two recordings of Beethoven which the American Record Guide named as among the
top classical recordings of 2020.
The New York Times put it succinctly after his performance at Tully Hall: Rosenbaum
“could not have been better”. And a headline in the Boston Globe summed up the appeal of Rosenbaum’s playing:
“Fervor and Gentleness Combined”.
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 Tamas Ungar
Hungary/USA
Pianist Tamás Ungár has earned worldwide acclaim for his powerful performances and
innovative programming. His distinguished career transverse frequently the globe receiving
invitations from music centers in the United States, Australia, Brazil, Colombia,
Hungary, Poland, Romania, England, Taiwan, The People's Republic of China, Korea and
Japan. Most notable highlights included the Bartók Centenary Recital in the Queen
Elizabeth Hall, London; soloist/conductor of Mozart Piano Concertos at Leeds University,
world première with the Albany Symphony Orchestra and Geoffrey Simon of the Barry
Conyngham’s “Monuments” – Double Concerto for Piano,Violin and Orchestra: the world
première of Lawrence Leonard’s piano concerto version of the Pictures at an Exhibition
with the Sacramento Symphony Orchestra with Geoffrey Simon and special visits for
solo recitals and master class serieses at the Liszt Academy in Budapest.
Tamás Ungár has become one of United States' best-known and most respected teachers
of the piano. As Founder - Executive Director of PianoTexas International Festival
& Academy and member of the TCU Piano Faculty, he attracts students from across America
and as far afield as Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, China, England, Germany,
Greece, India, Israel, Kazakhstan, Korea, Hungary, Japan, Malaya, Mexico, Poland,
Republic of Georgia, Singapore, Russia and Taiwan. His students have received prizes
in national and international competitions, have performed in prestigious music centers
around the globe, Since 1989 Tamás Ungár has been a regular guest teacher at the music
centers in Europe including England, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Spain,
Sweden, and in Asia in China, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Indonesia. From 2006 to
2014, he was the Artistic Director of the Beijing International Piano Festival and
he continues to be Artistic Advisor for the Zhou Guangren Summer Piano Institute.
During the summers Dr. Ungár has been invited as guest teacher to the Semper International
Music Festival in Schlern, Italy, the Banff Piano Master Classes, Canada, Hamamatsu
Master Classes in Japan, the Tel-Hai Master Classes in Israel, International Master
Classes in Katowice, the Chopin Festival in Duszniki, Poland the Chetham’s International
Summer School and Festival in Manchester, England.
In 2010 Dr. Ungár received the prestigious Presidential Scholar Program’s Teacher
Recognition Award and in 2013 the Music Teachers National Association (USA) named
him “The Teacher of the Year”. The Senate of Texas has proclaimed Tamás Ungár as a
“Distinguished Citizen” in recognition for his lifetime work and achievements in the
fine arts.
Dr. Ungár's most influential teachers included Alexander Sverjensky at the Sydney
Conservatorium of Music, Lajos Hernádi at the Liszt Academy in Budapest and György
Sebök at Indiana University, where he was awarded the Doctorate in Music. Prior to
his present position he taught at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the Purcell
School, England and at the University of California at San Diego. He joined the TCU
School of Music in 1978 where he is Professor of Music.
Tamás Ungár records exclusively for CALA SIGNUM Records.
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 Sofya Gulyak
Russia/USA
Sofya Gulyak is associate professor of music in piano at the Indiana University Jacobs
School of Music. She was previously a piano professor at the Royal College of Music
in London.
In 2009, Gulyak was awarded first prize and the Princess Mary Gold Medal at the 16th
Leeds International Piano Competition, the first woman to achieve this distinction.Since
then, she has appeared internationally to great critical and publicacclaim. Other
prestigious prizesshe has won include first prizes at the Kapell, Maj Lind,Tivoli,Isangyun,
and San Marino international piano competitions, second prize(first not awarded)at
Busoni, and third prize at the Long–Thibaud–Crespin Competition.
Gulyak has performed insuch venues as La Scala Theatre in Milan, Herculessaal in Munich,Salle
Cortot,Salle Gaveau and Salle Pleyel in Paris, Wigmore Hall in London, MoscowConservatory,
Konzerthaus in Berlin, Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.,
Hong Kong City Hall, Shanghai Grand Theatre, and Tokyo OperaCity Hall.
She has played with such orchestras as the London Philharmonic, Royal LiverpoolPhilharmonic,
Hallé, BBC Scottish and Finnish Radio symphony orchestras, Helsinki Philharmonic,
St. Petersburg Philharmonic,Budapest Philharmonic,Orchestre National de France, and
Shanghai Philharmonic.
Conductors with whom Gulyak has collaborated include Mark Elder, Vladimir Ashkenazy,
Sakari Oramo, Donald Runnicles, Vasily Petrenko,Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Theodor Guschlbauer,
Lahav Shani, Karl-Heinz Steffens, and Alan Burybaev, among others.
Gulyak’s 2013 recording of Russian piano music on Champs Hill Records received a five-star
review in Diapason magazine and glowing reviews in Gramophone and The Guardian,while
her 2015 all-Brahms CD (on Piano Classics) led the American Record Guide to draw comparisons
withthe young Martha Argerich and Fanfare magazine to hail her as “a natural Brahmsian,
whatever his moods.”
Her latest CD (on Champs Hill Records) of piano chaconnes was welcomed by The Arts
Desk as “a fascinating collection, superbly realised andbeautifully recorded.”
Born in Kazan, Russia, Gulyak studied at the Kazan State Conservatoireunder Elfiya
Burnasheva before continuing her studies with Boris Petrushansky at Imola Piano Academy
in Italy and Vanessa Latarche at the Royal College of Music in London.
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Caroline Oltmanns
Yakov Kasman
