Evren Ozel, piano

American pianist Evren Ozel has established himself as a musician of “refined restraint” (Third Coast Review), combining fluent virtuosity with probing, thoughtful interpretations. Having performed extensively in the United States and abroad, Evren is the recipient of a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant, 2022 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, and is currently represented by Concert Artists Guild as an Ambassador Prize Winner of their 2021 Victor Elmaleh Competition.

Since his debut at age 11 with the Minnesota Orchestra, Evren has gone on to be a featured soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra, Jacksonville Symphony, Boston POPS Orchestra, and The Orchestra Now at Bard College with conductors including Jahja Ling, Courtney Lewis, Keith Lockhart, and Leon Botstein. In the 2023-24 season, he records Mozart Concertos with the Radio Symphonieorchester Wien and conductor Howard Griffiths for the Next Generation Mozart Soloists project based in Zurich, Switzerland.

Evren has performed solo recitals at important venues across the US, including The Gilmore’s Wellspring Theater, the Harvard Musical Association, and the Ordway.  In 2021 he delivered an all-Chopin recital under a joint collaboration between the Schubert Club and Chopin Society of Minnesota, to critical acclaim.  In the 2023-24 season, Evren performs the last three Beethoven Sonatas in recital, as well as a recital debut in Boston’s Jordan Hall. He also performs solo during select duo recitals, including 2024 concerts for Newport Classical in Rhode Island and People’s Symphony Concerts in New York.

An esteemed chamber musician, Evren has played at the Marlboro Music Festival and ChamberFest Cleveland, with artists such as Jonathan Biss, Franklin Cohen, Hsin-Yun Huang, Joseph Lin, Christoph Richter, Marcy Rosen, and Peter Wiley. He has also performed on Musicians from Marlboro tours at venues such as the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia and New York’s Carnegie Hall. Most recently, he was selected as a Bowers Program Artist for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In the 2023-24 season, Evren debuts at the Gardner Museum in Boston and the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. with violinist Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux. He frequently collaborates with violinist Geneva Lewis, including concerts for Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Capital Region Classical, and Washington Performing Arts at the Kennedy Center.

Evren began learning piano from the Suzuki method in his hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota, studying with Cindy Malmin.  He later studied for seven years with Dr. Paul Wirth in Minneapolis, and then moved to Massachusetts at age 15 to study with Wha Kyung Byun at the Walnut Hill School for the Arts and the New England Conservatory Preparatory School.  He received his Bachelors and Masters degrees from the New England Conservatory, and is currently a candidate in their prestigious and highly-exclusive Artist Diploma program, all under the tutelage of Wha Kyung Byun.  Other important mentors include Jonathan Biss, Imogen Cooper, Richard Goode, Dr. Sarah Miller, Tom Rosenberg, and Mitsuko Uchida.