Adam Golka, piano

Born and raised in Texas to a family of musicians from Poland, pianist Adam Golka has won widespread critical and popular acclaim with his “brilliant technique and real emotional depth” (The Washington Post).  He has garnered international prizes including the 2008 Gilmore Young Artist Award, first prize in the 2003 China Shanghai International Piano Competition and the 2009 Max I. Allen Classical Fellowship Award of the American Pianists Association.

With his extensive concerto repertoire, Golka has appeared as a soloist in the United States with the Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Indianapolis, New Jersey, Milwaukee, Phoenix, San Diego, Fort Worth, Omaha, Santa Fe, Ann Arbor, West Virginia, Fairfax, Silicon Valley, Rhode Island, Jacksonville, Syracuse, Pensacola, Lansing, Knoxville, Albany, Waco, South Dakota, Southeast Texas, and Grand Rapids symphonies, and with the Grand Teton and Colorado Music Festival orchestras. Internationally, he has appeared with the BBC Scottish Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa, the Sinfonia Varsovia, the Shanghai Philharmonic, the Warsaw Philharmonic, Orchestre Poitou-Charentes, the Orquesta Filarmonica de Jalisco, and the Teresa Carreí±o Youth Orchestra of Venezuela. He has worked with conductors such as Donald Runnicles, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Pinchas Zukerman, Mark Wigglesworth, Michael Christie, Andreas Delfs, Edwin Outwater, David Lockington, Daniel Hege, Joshua Weilerstein, Jacques Lacombe, Christian Vasquez, Julian Kuerti, Michael Morgan, Timothy Muffitt, Ryan McAdams, as well as his brother, conductor Tomasz Golka. Adam made his Carnegie Hall Isaac Stern Auditorium Debut in 2010, performing Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto with the New York Youth Symphony.

Further afield, he has played solo recitals at the Concertgebouw’s Kleine Zaal, Musashino Civic Cultural Hall in Tokyo, Nakanoshima Hall in Osaka, the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, and at festivals such as Mostly Mozart, the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, the Ravinia Festival, Music@Menlo, the New York City International Keyboard Festival at Mannes, the Newport Music Festival, and the Duszniki Chopin festival. As a chamber musician, his festival appearances have included prestigious festivals such as Marlboro, Caramoor, Ravinia, and Music@Menlo. Adam Golka has premiered solo works written for him by Richard Danielpour, Michael Brown, and JarosÅ‚aw GoÅ‚embiowski.

In the 2014-2015 season, Golka will perform a series of recitals, at the invitiation of András Schiff, in Berlin, Zurich, and New York (presented by the 92nd Street Y). Adam will also perform concertos of Beethoven, Chopin, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Ravel with the Vancouver, San Diego, Richmond, Evansville, Brevard, and California symphonies, as well as a solo recital at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and a recital tour in Israel.

Adam holds Artist Diplomas from Texas Christian University and the Peabody Conservatory, where he studied with José Feghali and Leon Fleisher, respectively. In his earlier training, he studied with his mother, Anna Golka, and Dariusz Pawlas of Rice Univesity. Since finishing his official studies, Adam has continued his work in lessons with András Schiff, Mitsuko Uchida, Richard Goode, Murray Perahia, and Rita Wagner. Adam Golka has been appointed Artist-in-Residence at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA beginning in the 2014/2015 season. His début disc, featuring the first sonata of Brahms and the Hammerklavier Sonata of Beethoven, was released in 2014 on First Hand Records.