Wonder Keys Competition Jury
Piano Section
Vassily Lobanov
Chairman, Russia-Germany
Worldwide pianist and composer, Vasily Lobanov was born in Moscow. He studied piano with legendary Heinrich Neuhaus and Lev Naumov and composition with Sergej Balassanjan and Alfred Schnittke.

Alfred Schnittke, one of the most significant composers of the 20th century, said of Lobanov, "There are talented composers and there are talented pianists, but seldom do those two talents converge in such brilliant proportion as they do in Vassily Lobanov …"

Lobanov initially began making concert appearances abroad in 1978, performing in the music metropolises of Europe, in the US, in Japan and South America with such conductors as Gennady Rozhdestwensky, Heinrich Schiff, Juri Bashmet, Christoph Poppen, Kurt Lewin, Alexander Lasarev...

He performed in a piano duo with Svjatoslav Richter, a piano trio with Oleg Kagan and Natalia Gutman and still, today remains a member of a piano quartet alongside Victor Tretiakov, Juri Bashmet, and Natalia Gutman. He concertized with many other renowned artists, such as Leonidas Kavakos, Gidon Kremer, Elmira Darvarova, Marc Kaplan, Eduard Brunner, Kolja Blacher, Charles Neidich, Kim Kashkashian...

1997-2012 he was the Professor for piano at Musikhochschule Cologne and currently he is the Professor in Zurich at the Kalaidos University and at the Schloss Akademie Germany.
Solomon Volkov
USA
Solomon Volkov is a Russian-American world famous culturologist whose work focuses on Russian cultural history and its colorful figures. Many of Solomon Volkov's writings draw on his professional training as a violinist and musicologist, and he has written books—some structured to document conversations—about such cultural figures as Dmitri Shostakovich, George Balanchine, Nathan Milstein and Joseph Brodsky.
Rudolfs Vanks
Latvia
The eminent Latvian pianist Rudolfs Vanks won many prizes at international music competitions, including the first prize with special mention at the Nikolai Rubinstein Piano Competition in Paris. He has performed as a soloist, as well as a chamber musician in Sweden, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Poland, France, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, Armenia and Singapore. He has made solo and chamber music recordings in WDR radio and Latvian radio 3 studios. Currently he is the head of the piano department at the Latvian National Art college's Emīla Dārziņa music school.

He is regularly invited to be a jury member in the international competitions.
Togrul Huseynli
Azerbaijan
Togrul Huseynli ranks amongst the rising piano stars of Azerbaijani classical music. He has performed in
major venues in Azerbaijan, Russia, Belorussia, Georgia, China, Germany, also with famous Orchestras
like Jerusalim Symphony Orchestra, Ranaana Simfonietta, Orquesto Simfonica de Galicia, Kiev
Virtuoses Symphony Orchestra e.t.c. He is a prizewinner of many international important competitions.

Currently he is also teaching at the Cologne University of Music.
Anna Prabucka-Firlej
Poland
Dr. Anna Prabucka-Firlej, Piano (Poland) - Professor, Head of Chamber Music Department, Academy of Music "Stanislaw Moniuszko", Gdansk. A chamber ensembles of her class won more than 200 rewards and distincions on international and national competitions.

Board Member, European Chamber Music Teachers' Association. Director, Johannes Brahms International Chamber Music Competition, Gdansk.

Director, International Piano Duo Festival, Gdansk.Founder and Member of the Gdansk Piano Trio. She gives master classes in various countries as Germany, Switzerland, Greece, Lithuania, Latvia, Belorussia, Finland, Moldova, Spain, Bulgaria, Russia, Chile, Peru and Tahiland.

She is a member of jury international and national competitions (Germany, Greece, Sweden, Lithuania, Byelorussia, Poland).
Sînziana Mircea
Romania
Romanian pianist Sînziana Mircea, Young Steinway Artist, regularly performs on some of the most important stages in the world. At just 20, she made her debut at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theater and St Martin-in-the-Fields in London. Her sold-out debut recital at Carnegie Hall in New York took place at the age of 24 years, being rewarded by the American public with standing ovations.

In 2016 she won the recital prize of the International Piano Academy in Miami and in 2014 she became the first Romanian pianist to receive a scholarship from the Van Cliburn Foundation and TCU School of Music at the PianoTexas Festival & Academy.She won the 1st Prize at the "Golden Classical Music Awards" International Competition, which brought her back on the prestigious stage at Carnegie Hall in November 2019. Also in 2019, she won two 1st Prizes, "Salzburg" and "Amsterdam" at the Grand Prize Virtuoso Competition.

Sinziana Mircea is the founder of the MuseArt Academy in Romania.
Ekaterina Derzhavina
Russia
Ms. Derzhavina was born in Moscow. Her studies were first at the Specialized Gnessins Moscow Music school, then at the Gnessins Russian Music Academy, where she also finished the post-graduate course. Her Professors were Yuri Polunin, Valeria Polunina and Vladimir Tropp.

In 1992 Ekaterina won the First Prize at the "J.S.Bach" International Piano Competition in Germany. From 1993 she was teaching in the piano department of the Gnessins Russian Music Academy, then
since 2003 she has been a Professor at the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory.

Ekaterina has appeared in such concert halls as the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Place des Arts in Montreal and many other renowned venues. She's given master-classes in Germany, Russia, the USA, Canada, Japan, United Kingdom and New Zealand. Her performances have been recorded on the radio of Moscow, Cologne (WDR), Saarbrücken (SR), Berlin (Deutschland Radio), and Montreal (Radio Canada).

In 1996 Arte Nova Classics released her disc with Goldberg-variations by Bach, which received the 1999 "Choc du Monde de la Musique" award in Paris. Ekaterina's 2CD-set with the piano works by Nikolai Medtner (Phoenix Edition) received the French Diapason d'or award in January 2009. In February 2013 the German label "Profil" released her 9CD-set of the complete Piano Sonatas by Josef Haydn. This edition was nominated for ICMA in 2014 and has received "Choc de Classica" in 2016. The set of Bach works (2 CDs) that includes all French Suites, the French Overture and some other pieces came out at "Profil" in September 2015 and has got a lot of enthusiastic reviews, as well as CD with rarely played piano works by Alexey Stanchinsky (released in
2017) and complete works for violin and piano by Nikolai Medtner with Nikita Boriso-Glebsky (released in 2018).

Made on
Tilda